The Wound of Sorrow
by poestheblackcat
Summary: In 2034, ten years after the tragic Seattle Transgenocide, a young girl tries to uncover her roots. Future fic, with flashbacks to 2009.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: In 2034, ten years after the tragic Seattle Transgenocide, a young girl tries to uncover her roots. Future fic, with flashbacks to 2009

Warnings/Spoilers: There are two major OFCs (with one in a pairing with a canon male character) in this story. This isn't a Mary-Sue story. Really—I'm not planning to write any hot-and-steamy/explicit sex scenes, although there is sex involved. I'm just tying in some things from one of my favorite episodes ("Pollo Loco") and my two favorite characters (Ben and Alec) with an idea that comes from the path the show started on in the Season 2 finale…with the help of a couple of original female characters.

Also, there's language (the d***n word, etc, but no f-bombs) and child molestation (implied, non-graphic). And pay attention to the timelines.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and concepts are not mine. The title comes from the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary. I also apologize for anything I get wrong about the Roman Catholic religion. I myself am not a Catholic, so I'm using the internet to guide me.

Beta: FirstBorn. Thank you so much!

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**The Wound of Sorrow**

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Hail Mary, full of grace,  
our Lord is with thee,  
blessed art thou among women,  
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  
Holy Mary, mother of God,  
pray for us sinners, now, and in  
the hour of our death.  
_Amen._

—_Hail Mary prayer_

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**Chapter 1**

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_Gillette, Wyoming, January 2009_

Ben runs and runs, as fast as his legs can carry him. Bare feet fly over the white snow, ignoring the icy needle-pricks.

Every once in a while, he sees one of his blue-gown-clad brothers and sisters flash by behind a tree. Soldiers' shouts and radio chatter cut through the bitter cold silence of the night.

Ben runs on. His breath trails white smoke behind him in the dark, frozen air.

There, beyond that clump of trees, standing as tall and dark as ever from his earliest memories of the forest, forbidding passage, he sees three heads. Not soldiers' heads; they have no black woolen caps to protect them from the cold. No, these heads are smaller, their hair shorn to buzz cuts, identical to his own. His brothers and sisters.

_Only three?_ He wonders. Of his whole unit, only three have made it out this far? Then one, two more heads pop up.

Big brother Zack ushers him down. Ben thanks the Blue Lady as he slips behind his siblings, trusting the small dip in the landscape to protect them from the soldiers' eyes.

He trembles from excitement. He has always wondered what lies outside the military compound. He knows there is _**something**_ out there—this miserable life can't be all there is in the world. Anything has to be better than here, Manticore. Maybe the outside will be like the Good Place, where no one ever gets punished, or yelled at, and no one disappears. In the Good Place, no one ever has to follow orders or…

Soft footsteps shake him from his thoughts. They are lighter than a fully-grown male's would be. He cautiously raises his head over the edge of the small hill. Brin. He grins. She's made it.

And who is that a few steps behind her? Tinga? Her dark eyes sparkle with barely-suppressed excitement.

They duck down to wait for the others.

The last one to come is Max, his favorite sister. At the very last minute, Jace had opted to stay behind, too timid to venture out into the unknown. Eva and Jack are…Ben swallows hard. There will be plenty of time to mourn them later. They are casualties of war.

Zack gives them their orders. The words flow fluidly from the twelve-year-old CO's hands. There isn't even a hint of a tremor, belying anything but complete certainty. If there was, Ben and the others would certainly have picked up on it. Zack is a good CO. They can always be sure to depend on his decisions.

Still, his orders are to scatter and go to ground. Ben frowns. But they have always been together. They work better as a team. He looks around to gauge the others' reactions.

He sees Max shaking her head. _"No,"_ she signs. _"Bad idea."_ Ben agrees, but doesn't move.

Zack uses his higher status to pull rank on Max. His orders stand: They part.

Ben runs.

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_Seattle, Washington, May 2, 2034_

There are three reasons Normal remembers May 2, 2034.

Firstly, it's the tenth anniversary of what the news crews have dubbed the Transgenocide. Twenty-four hours of nonstop bombing and pummeling of Seattle's very own 'Freak Nation,' Terminal City. The hands of the clock ticked to 12 on the night of May 1, 2024, and the brightest fireworks the city had ever seen lit up the Washington coastline. All of America cheered. The fire ceased only when the hands clicked back to 12, midnight of May 2.

In one day, the United States government had succeeded in exterminating every member of the Transgenic race. To them, they represented 5.7 trillion dollars worth of research up in flames. To the American public, they were abominations stamped out and forgotten. To Reagan Ronald, Cynthia McEachin, Calvin Theodore, Logan Cale, and a few others, they were friends and allies who, most importantly, were more human than their oppressors in many ways. They mourned them, some quietly, and some not-so-quietly. Eyes Only had been very active that summer.

The second reason the day sticks in Normal's mind is that it's not every day that a young girl walks into Jam Pony and is actually polite to him. She's pretty in a way that reminds him of a certain spitfire brunette, all sad brown eyes and soft lips hidden under a mass of dark curls. She stands at the door, a bit hesitant, then seems to make up her mind, pulls her chin up and saunters into the place as if she owns it. That reminds him of someone too. "Excuse me, sir," she says when she gets to the counter. Normal hasn't been addressed in that manner by any of the ingrates in his employ since…well, never. Unless they're being sarcastic or sucking up to him, of course. He's pleased that finally, someone's mother has taught them to respect their elders.

And third thing? What girl then asks him throws him off-kilter. It shouldn't, really. It's been ten years, sure, but the TV stations have been airing clips of the incident for a week now, day in and day out. The tenth anniversary of a mass murder is a big thing, especially since crime and violence have been slow in the city this month. They call it 'murder' now—apparently, in ten years, enough people have doubted the decision that the news stations have picked up on the misgivings and amplified the incident into a sort of 'Attica' event in recent American history.

"Excuse me, sir," the girl says, a sweet smile on her lips and a hopeful look in her eyes. "Did you know this man?" Her speech carries the slightest inflection of a Spanish accent. The effect is charming.

Innocent question. It's the picture she pushes at him that freezes him to the spot. It's not a photograph or a 'Wanted' police sketch or any other criminally associated facsimile. It is a simple pencil drawing of a man in profile. Artistic, a thing of beauty; it is obviously not meant to be used for the positive identification in an official investigation. Normal doesn't know much about art, but it's quite well done, because he knows immediately who the subject is. It's a face he's only caught quick glimpses of on TV in the past few days. And before that? Every single day…that the said subject of the portrait deigned to show up to work, that is. His Golden Boy, also known as Alec McDowell, additional alias X5-494. Current status: deceased.

He recovers, flicks indifferent eyes over at the girl, who can't be more than sixteen at the most, maybe as young as thirteen, and hems. "Who is he?" he deflects.

The girl isn't fooled; he sees that right away. She narrows her eyes, purses her perfectly dainty mouth, and huffs. In any other, this action would no doubt put Normal to mind of a petulant teenager, but the girl somehow seems to override his natural resistance to youth's unpleasantness and worms her way into the soft spot in his heart. Of course, Normal himself doesn't realize this yet. He only knows that he wants to tell her whatever she asks of him. He is aware that he probably shouldn't—she could be a news reporter, or heaven forbid, a government agent.

In the short time it's taken for Normal to think all this, the girl's made up her mind to throw him another curveball. "He's my father," she states matter-of-factly. "I'm trying to find as much information as I can about him. He worked for you a while, no? Before they all went to Terminal City."

"Fa—oh," he stammers. "Are you sure?" He's got to ask because even though he knows how his boy was with the fairer sex, there are some things one simply must ascertain before proceeding.

"No," the girl shrugs, "but my mother was. And that is good enough for me." The smirk on her face clinches it. It's _**that**_ smirk, the one that in a few years will say, S_ex on legs, come and get it._ Holy mother of lollipops.

He finds himself scrabbling on his desk for a piece of paper and a pen. "Here," he shoves them at her. "Name and number where I can reach you. I have to call someone to set up the meeting."

The girl takes the proffered objects automatically. "Meeting?" A line mars the smooth surface of her forehead. "What do you mean?"

"I was only his boss. I didn't know much about him, but I know someone who could probably tell you something." Normal gestures at the paper, "I can't tell you who it is until I've talked to them—confidentiality is important to me as a businessman—but I'll call you once I do."

"Oh," the girl says, comprehension dawning, and quickly scribbles out the requested information. "Thank you, sir." She beams at him and walks out of the building with a bounce in her step.

Normal takes the paper back and puts his headset on. "No problemo…Mila Iglesias, is it? Hm, pretty name." He clears his throat, "Hot run to 4th and Pine!"

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**Pop culture reference:**

'Attica'—referencing the 1971 riot at Attica Prison in New York. The inmates demanded better living conditions and took several officers and guards prisoner. Negotiations went badly when the state police took charge of the prison. By the end, at least 39 people were dead. A famous cultural reference to this incident is in Al Pacino's _Dog Day Afternoon_. His character shouts, "Attica! Attica!" in allusion to the excessive use of force by the police during the riot. For more information on the subject, look it up on Wikipedia.

**Story art:**

I'm trying to do some artwork for this story. First up is the drawing mentioned above. It's at my LJ: http(:)(/)poestheblackcat(.)livejournal(.)com/30070(.)html.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I decided to post the first two chapters at once to gauge what response this story will get. Review? Please?

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**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 2**

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_Hibbing, Minnesota, February—March 2009_

It's halfway though February when they find him. They're an agency called the CPS. The people are soft and nice, but Ben doesn't like them. They treat him as if he is a child, not a billion-dollar weapon that could kill them in ten seconds flat. Ben wonders what they would do if they found out what he really is.

The building where they find him is called a church. He slips in one night, drawn by the dimly lit figure he can see through the window. The Blue Lady—he has found her. He will be safe there…or so he thinks. A man dressed all in black comes in and approaches him. Ben is careful not to seem different from any other child—he doesn't attack with a butterfly kick to the head—but he hasn't been outside long enough to know how a normal child would behave.

The man is calm; Ben thinks he likes him. He asks for Ben's name; Ben is distrustful of him and doesn't reply. The man doesn't seem to mind, and tells him his own name—Father John. Father John gives Ben food and drink, and a place to sleep for the night. Ben takes the food suspiciously, and lies down in the bed. He does not sleep, however; he can't—there's no one to watch his back, so he must do it himself.

When the morning brings Father John into his room with a man and a woman following close behind, he bolts. He is tired, though, and the adults seem to expect him to run—they catch him and hold him tight. Ben is afraid, he is _**afraid,**_ and doesn't want to be here any longer. He is so tired, tired and scared, and lonely. He wonders if it is crazy to want to go back to Manticore, but shakes the thought out of his head. He can't shake the exhaustion from little to no sleep since the escape, and the movement makes him dizzy, so dizzy that he collapses to the floor. Warm arms catch him and bundle him back into the warm bed. He resists, or tries to, but the movements must be very feeble, for the covers swamp over him with no effort.

When he wakes, there is food on the bedside table and Father John and the others are still there. They question him while he eats; he doesn't answer. They leave for a little while. Ben sees no way out of the room but the way he came in, and that way is undoubtedly blocked by the three adults now talking in the hall. When they come back in, they explain to him that the man and the woman must take him from the Father's custody now and that he will be processed downtown. Ben doesn't know what that means, but he isn't tired anymore and he has eaten his fill. He tenses to flee again, but the Father sees and tells him, "Please do not run, my child, and accept our help." Very much like in a book Ben is to read later in life, the 'please' catches his attention. Ben acquiesces.

When they take him to the station, he tells them his name—_Ben._ Last name? What's that? There's a placard on the female officer's desk. _Deputy Kathleen Hudak. _The first is the position, the second, the woman's name, and the third? Oh, it's a surname. They're asking for Ben's surname. "Church," he tells them. "Ben Church." There's no Ben Church on record. They ask him more questions. The things he tells them are not true, but he knows how to lie convincingly.

They take him back to the Father. Ben stays with him for eight days before Deputy Hudak comes to the church and leads him to her car. He's going to live with a foster family, she informs him. He doesn't know what that is, so he just nods. The sound of drizzle pattering down on the windshield breaks the silence in the car during the ride.

They stop in front of a house, painted blue with white shutters. The deputy knocks on the door. It opens after a minute, revealing a woman in a pink sweater and slacks. She smiles as she lets them in, "Hi, this must be Ben. I'm Juliet Richardson and you're going to be staying with me and my family for a while."

Ben stares up at her, assessing. Juliet is between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, blonde and blue-eyed, and of average height. She is neither stunningly beautiful nor grotesquely ugly, but the smile she wears puts her nearer the former than the latter. "My husband should be home soon," she continues after offering Ben and the deputy drinks, "and our other foster child is with him. Her name's Maria and she's about your age. You'll like her." Ben blinks at her, solemn and silent.

At that moment, Ben hears the sound of a car pulling into the driveway and jerks his head in that direction. "Are they home now? My, what good hearing you have," Juliet remarks absentmindedly. Ben reminds himself not to seem too…enhanced. Deputy Hudak stands, ready to take her leave. She exchanges some words with Juliet Richardson that mean nothing to Ben although he takes note of them for possible future reference and analysis.

A key turns in the lock and the door swings open out of Ben's field of vision. Footsteps clatter into the house and then to the sitting room where they all are. A man—tall and broad, dark hair starting to recede, silver-rimmed eyeglasses, wearing a green shirt under which a muscled physique can be seen, Ben notes automatically—enters.

"This is my husband, Mark," Juliet says, "and this is Maria."

A young girl has just followed Mark Richardson into the room. She is wearing a bright blue jacket, with the hood pulled up over her head for warmth and to keep her dry from the cold March drizzle. Light from the window in the room behind her casts a shadow over her face, and causes golden rays to circle around her blue-clothed figure. Ben's heart stutters in his chest—The Blue Lady. Not a statue like in the church, but living and breathing. He can't believe it. His faith has finally paid off.

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_Seattle, Washington, May 7, 2034_

Mila steps into the diner and takes a look around. Of course, there's no way of telling who she's supposed to look for—Reagan Ronald had been very mysterious when he'd called her to tell her where and when she'd be meeting with the 'informant.' He'd given her no description, not even the gender of the individual (or individuals), and had simply told her, "They'll know you." Mila suspects the Jam Pony owner spends his free time reading spy novels.

So with a sigh, she tries to guess if the person (or persons) she is meeting has arrived yet. Since it is a little after nine, most of the dinner bustle has settled down. There is a smattering of customers in the establishment. Three women sit at a table in the middle, engaged in a conversation that is probably full of juicy gossipy tidbits, if the expressions on their faces may be trusted. There are two men in suits sitting in a booth next to the window, seemingly conducting a business deal. A lone man in ragged clothes that have seen better days nurses a coffee at the counter. There's a bearded man sitting alone in a booth along the far wall sipping a cup of coffee and eating a pastry while reading a newspaper. At the dark corner table next to him is another man, also by himself, bespectacled and appearing to be waiting for someone.

_I wonder who__ is__ the guy I'm meeting with_, Mila says to herself sarcastically, making her way to the corner booth. The guy sees her coming and stands. "Mila?" he asks, an assessing look in his eye. He's looking her up and down, as if noting similarities to the man whose portrait she carries in her bag.

"Mr. Mysterious, I presume?" she counters. At the man's confused expression, she explains, "Mr. Ronald only told me I would be speaking to 'somebody' today. He gave me no name."

"Mr. Ronald?" The man still looks baffled, but then breaks into a grin. "Oh right, Normal. I'm Logan Cale." He puts out his hand for her to shake.

She takes it with a light laugh. "I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Cale."

Logan notes her firm grip and steady gaze. He gets now why Normal had called him sputtering from excitement. He can see Alec in the girl too…or is that simply wishful thinking? "Logan," he says. "Call me Logan."

They sit. "Soda?" he asks and signals the waitress.

Mila is eager to begin. "Logan," she says, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. She shakes her curtain of dark hair away from her face. A gold pendant glints at her throat. "I suppose you know why I am here?"

Logan nods. "Normal mentioned that you think that a certain person I used to know might be your father, and that you're trying to uncover as much information about him as you can."

The girl smirks. "That's a fancy way of putting it. Yes, Normal recognized him from my picture and said you would be able to help me." There's a look in Mila's brown eyes that stirs an emotion in Logan that he hasn't felt in years. She has hope. This endeavor means a great deal to the girl. He wants to help her attain her goal.

"Do you mind showing it to me?" This gives Logan an opportunity to examine the girl more closely and unobserved as she rummages in her worn backpack. Mila's mother must have been Hispanic. There's the slight accent, of course, which points to Mila herself having been raised out of the country, but some of the contours of her face give her an exotic look. She's pretty, and probably even now has the power beauty gives over the male sex. There's a freshness to her, too, the bloom that youth and hope can give.

"Here." A yellowed paper shoved over to his side of the table returns his attention to the matter at hand. It takes a few moments before Logan's eyes are able to make out the simple sketch executed lightly in pencil. The graphite is a little smudged and the paper worn out and ripped at the edges, as if it has been victim to frequent handling. But however blurred the drawing is, Normal's right: the portrait is undoubtedly of Alec.

A woman from the center table laughs shrilly, and the newspaper the man in the next booth has rustles as he stands to pick up a dropped napkin. Logan looks up again into Mila's expectant eyes. _Well? _they seem to say, _you gonna tell me now?_ He clears his throat. "That's him all right." He examines the drawing again, this time with a critical eye. "Your mother did this? It's good. She has an eye. Nice, clean lines, the expression here—"

There's a cough from the newspaper man as he turns the page, and Logan starts. "Excuse me," he says. "I got a little off-track there, didn't I? I used to collect art."

"Oh," Mila says politely. "My mother made her living as an artist. Paintings, illustrations, and tattoos." Logan's raised eyebrow makes her giggle. "She only had one. No place visible, so don't worry. _Mam__á_ was quite respectable. I have one in the same place," she adds. Her eyes sparkle mischievously, as if daring him to guess where.

"That's…good," is all Logan can say to that. He clears his throat again, "So you want to know about Alec?"

Mila is surprised and her English slips. _"__¿Cómo? ¿Qué dijiste? _What you say? Alec?" Her puzzled expression disappears in a moment, however. "Ah, most likely he did not use the same name all the time, yes?" Her eyes are bright with excitement.

"Uh, what name did…" Logan starts to ask, but is cut off by another bullet-quick question from Mila and her insistence to "Go on. You knew him right before the Terminal City siege?"

Logan frowns, but he trudges on anyway. "Yes, I did. We…worked together on a few things. Before the bombing." He stops and looks a little annoyed for some reason when the man with the cold in the next booth hacks into his coffee mug, but Mila urges him on with a "Yes, and…?"

There's something about Mila that Logan thinks is important, but it's not until now that he can grasp at it. "How old did you say you were?" Logan asks abruptly.

"Eh?" Mila looks perplexed. "Uh, I have fifteen years of age. Why?" Dark eyebrows draw together in confusion.

Logan follows the train of thought that led him to the question. "Well then in that case, it's impossible that Alec's your father. He got out of Manticore in 2020, but year you were born was…"

"2019," Mila finished. "But how, then? My mother was with him for almost ten years. _No es posible._"

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**Author's Notes: **

**The Spanish: **

Mila's English is a bit strange because it is not her first language (ex: "I have fifteen years of age." In Spanish, this would be _"Tengo quince __a__ño__s de edad,"_ or literally, "I have fifteen years of age.")The same goes for Maria. I, however, only took high school Spanish, so my apologies if it's a little off.

**Translations: **

_¿Cómo? ¿Qué dijiste?_ = What? What did you say?

_No es possible._ = It's not possible.

**Pop culture references: **

"Please" is a reference to the novel and film _The Princess Bride_. If you haven't seen it, shame on you.

Deputy Kathleen Hudak of Hibbing, Minnesota is the name of a character from the episode "The Benders" from _Supernatural._ I also watched the Season 4 episode "Elegy" of _The X-Files_ recently and was delighted to discover a male character named "Detective Hudak" in it. "Elegy" was written by John Shiban, who also wrote (dud-dun-duuuun!) "The Benders." Connection: I'd like to think so. I feel so smart. Or not, considering how much time I spent finding this out. Oh, and look, the guy who got hunted by the Benders was in two episodes of _The X-Files._ And one of the Bender sons was in a whole bunch of _X-Files_ episodes as an actor and a stunt guy. Not to mention all of the episodes of _Dark Angel_ most of the actors in both episodes have been in…Okay, done 'connecting' now.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: So I got kind of stressed and eeps!-y about stuff happening in real life, so decided to post another chapter a day early. I was originally thinking weekly updates. What do you think?

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**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 3**

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_Hibbing, Minnesota, March—April 2009_

Maria Delacruz is nine years old and has big brown eyes and soft lips surrounded by gentle waves of dark, smooth hair. With a pang, Ben realizes that she looks a little bit like Max. She has a strange lilt to her voice, a little like the way Sergeant Ramirez back at the base used to speak.

"Spanish was my first language. Before we came to America, my family lived in a small town in Mexico," she tells him when she catches him staring at her once when she speaks, only she says it "MEH-hico." He has never heard the country pronounced that way. In geography classes at Manticore, the instructor said it, "Mecks-ico." Ben decides he likes Maria's way better. It sounds like a breeze whipping through the branches of pine trees. _Meh-hico. MEH-hico._

Sometimes, she tells him about her life from Before. Before her parents died in an awful car crash that left her an orphan, tossed from foster family to foster family all across the country. Ben learns what 'mother' and 'father' are meant to be like, both from the Richardsons and what Maria tells him she remembers of her parents. Maria doesn't expect him to tell her anything from his Before. She just talks. It's soothing, in a way.

They attend the same school and are placed in the same class. He stays as silent as possible without standing out too much so he can observe the way the other children are acting. Maria helps him to blend in by giving him small nudges and whispered instructions.

He is grateful to her for this. A shy smile tugs on the ends of his mouth. He receives a warm grin in reply. "I know it's hard to fit in. I've been in the system for a while and it's always hard to start at a new school," she whispers during a lull in the class. "You'll get the hang of it soon. Besides, you don't look like me, so that should make it easier."

Ben has noticed that for all of Maria's ease in maneuvering the ins and outs of elementary school, she isn't exactly like all the others. The class is predominantly white, like Ben is. The rest of the students, five of them, are black. Maria is the only Hispanic in the school. In some ways, Ben is more like the rest of Lincoln Elementary than she is.

Maria is right. He does learn to fit in with the other students…somewhat. He learns to appear of average intellect (a difficult task, when he knows more about certain subjects than all of the teachers in the school combined) and to appear to have the physical prowess of an average nine-year-old (sometimes he just wants to _**blur **_instead of plodding slowly along with the others in their PE classes) so he can blend in. He does his assignments in neat handwriting, just the way he had been taught all those years ago. When the teacher comments on its superb legibility, he changes it a little bit so that it is not quite so orderly. Maria notices. "Your letters have character now," she jokes. "Not like a computer typing anymore."

Maria's writing is messy, all over the place. If disorderliness conveys character, Ben supposes wryly that Maria's handwriting is full of it. Ben knows that she can write as neatly as the next fourth grader if she wants to—he's seen it when she doodles on her papers in class. That's another thing Ben notices about Maria. She is always drawing. Her worksheets are always full of them, flowers blooming off of the end of the multiplication table and dogs chasing cats between the lines of a paragraph on an English assignment.

He is still a little surprised when Maria asks him if she can draw him one afternoon. Ben admits he's curious (he's got feline DNA in him after all), so he consents. He's a little uneasy once she starts, because the last time he'd been examined and studied so thoroughly had been at Manticore, and this brings those memories back, still fresh in his mind after only a couple months out. However, there is a difference: Maria's gaze is warm and she doesn't look as if she wants to take him apart to study him anytime soon. Her tongue slips from between her lips in concentration as she scribbles and erases on her paper. Her gold pendant swings on its chain. He sits still through the whole thing, not moving a muscle. He's used to it—he and his unit used to have to stand at attention for hours as tests of their discipline.

When Maria finishes, there is a smudge of black on her nose where she's rubbed a graphite-covered hand across her face. A triumphant smile adorns her face as she hands him the paper. "Here," she says. "All done. It's not so good though. Maybe I could do another one some other time?"

He takes the sheet and arranges it perfectly parallel to the edge of the table. He's never seen a drawing of himself, only photographs. It is him, undoubtedly, although the nose is crooked and the eyes are of different sizes. He smiles. "This is good. I…I like it," he says quietly.

Maria blushes. "You can have it then."

Ben looks at her with startled hazel eyes. He's never had anything given to him that he didn't need for survival before. This drawing is a frivolous thing, a decoration.

Perhaps he stares for too long without reacting, because Maria's smile falls a little and she shrugs. "You don't have to keep it if you don't want it," she begins, before he shakes his head and draws the paper closer.

"No, I like it. I want it," he reassures her hurriedly. It comes out a little too strong maybe.

Maria stares back. "Okay. Okay, then. I- uh, I'm gonna go wash my hands before dinner, okay?" She shakes her blackened hands at him and leaves.

He stares at the picture in his hands until Juliet comes to tell him that dinner's ready and to clean up.

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_Seattle, Washington, May 7, 2034_

"I'm sorry," Logan says, looking at the flustered girl over the tops of his glasses. "This does look like him though. Where is your mother?"

Mila's breathing shakily and sniffling and doing all those other things that people do when they're trying not to cry. She collects herself enough to find her voice. "I- uh, she's….My mother is dead. Last year. She told me I have to find him. My father. If he is even still alive. I- She always believed but I- I don't know. I thought…we saw him on _la __televisión _in _México,_"she stammers in broken English, her emotions getting the best of her. "I was only baby, but I remember. And now there is picture _por __la __televisión_ all of the time. Because ten years ago. I think he might be dead." She gives Logan such a plaintive and mournful look that he really feels quite badly about what he's just told her.

He's lost for words for a minute, so he pats her hand in a pathetic attempt to comfort her. "I…well, the last couple of weeks they've been airing footage of Alec from 2021 to '24." He thinks. "When and where did your mother meet your father? Maybe if we can figure that out, then we can identify who he is, since he can't be Alec, and maybe what happened to him. Can you tell me what you know about him?"

There's not much Mila can drudge up from her flustered mind to tell Logan that can explain why in the world her father looks so much like Alec. The bare bones of it are: They met in 2009 before the Pulse when they were placed in the same foster family. They stuck together after the Pulse and drifted from city to city until 2018 when they separated. Mila was born in 2019. Her mother took her back to Mexico soon after and raised her there until her death last year.

From this, all Logan can say is, "Well, if your father escaped in 2009, it's very probable that he was in Max's unit."

Mila's eyes light up. "Yes, Max. I know about her. She was his sister. My father told _Mam__á_ about her. She…she's the one from Terminal City, right? They call her, _'La Guevara'_ in _México_."

"Hm, yeah," Logan hems enigmatically. "Well, I can't tell you anything at this moment, but if you'll give me a few days, I'm sure I can turn up something on him. I'll let you know if I do find something."

"Oh." Mila looks disappointed. "Okay." Obviously, this interview did not go the way she had hoped it would. This man doesn't even know who the man in the drawing is, aside from the fact that her mother insisted that he is her father, let alone anything pertaining to where he is (if he's alive) or any other information about him, although he can tell her who he _**looks**_ like. And even if he knows something, he doesn't seem very willing to disclose it. Lots of help, this Logan guy.

Mila sighs as she walks out of the diner and out into the crowded street. She looks up, and in front of her is the Space Needle. She's never seen it before, but somehow, it draws her near and she feels the compulsion to climb it.

It's a long way up; she counts over 800 steps. It's chilly when she gets to the top, the musty scent of rain in the air. It's a long way down, too, she realizes, as she steps over the wall separating the outer rim of the 'saucer' from the observation deck. The wind whips her dark hair around her face and neck. The tiny lights of the city twinkle below. She's not afraid. Somehow, it's…freeing.

Mila becomes aware of a presence behind her, in the shadows of the observation deck, and casually allows her hand to wander to her back pocket. Turning quickly, she whips out a switchblade and wields it at her pursuer.

"Get away from me. I know how to use this," she says with all the fierceness she possesses.

The man backs away with his hands up in a placating gesture. "Whoa, hey, no need for violence." It's the man from the diner, the bearded one who'd been sitting near Logan and Mila.

"Who are you and why did you follow me?" Mila demands, moving as far away from the edge of the saucer as she can, while simultaneously getting ready to stab or slash or whatever knives are used for. She really doesn't know how to use it, except for jimmying open locks and such. "Answer me!"

"Okay," the man says calmly, as if he knows she's bluffing. "Just put the knife away and we'll talk," he coaxes.

Mila's wary. "No, I think I like where it is now, thanks."

"Alright, your call." The man shrugs. "I really do just want to talk though." He leans on the nearby wall. Nonchalant. His eyes study the teen from under short-cropped brown hair. It disconcerts her.

"What?" she grits out. "Start talking." Her cold hand is sweaty around the metal hilt of the knife. Her heart hammers in her chest. She's afraid; she doesn't know why the man has followed her from the diner all the way up here and what he wants with her.

The man sighs, exasperated. "Okay. Just don't go sticking that anywhere important and we have a deal." Mila doesn't show she has heard and agreed to his proposal. "I was in that diner and heard you talking to the guy. Course, you know that." He shrugs. "Well, it just turns out that Logan asked me to be there. 'Cause your problem sort of has something to do with me." He looks at Mila expectantly.

The knife shakes in her hand. "Who are you?" she breathes. "You're not…you're not _**him?"**_ After all these years, after everything her mother has been through, everything _**she's**_ been through, Mila is finally meeting _**him?**_

"Your dad?" the man asks. His face is serious…and apologetic. "No, sorry. I'm not him. My name's Alec."

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**Translations: **

_la __television_ = television

_México_ = Mexico

_por __la __televisión_ = on television

So I got to thinking, of all of Max's siblings and other Transgenic friends, it's only Alec and Ben who have gone up to the Needle, right? At least that's from what I can remember. Interesting, huh?

Review? Just let me know what you think—is this story too confusing/not interesting/etc. I'll try to fix whatever faults you may find. _**If**_ you review and tell me. So thanks!


	4. Chapter 4

Warning: If the idea of an adult taking advantage of a child really, _**really**_ bothers you, then stop reading right now. It's not graphic, but it's implied as having happened before.

Thanks for sticking with me so far!

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**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 4**

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_Hibbing, Minnesota, May 2, 2009_

Maria is afraid of Mark Richardson. She tries to hide it from everyone, but she's just a young girl, a civilian. Ben can see it.

There's something unsettling about the man. He's 'normal' in every sense of the word. Average looks, average height, average attitude (from what Ben can glean from television and films and life outside the Richardson home), average, average, average.

But there's still something about him that makes Ben's hair stand up on the back of his neck. He's come to notice it gradually, the way Mark looks at Maria, touches her (it makes her freeze up and squirm away), the way he begins to look at Ben. He doesn't try to touch him however. Ben is too skittish for that. He doesn't like it when people touch him. The one time Mark tried, Ben growled at him from deep in his chest.

Ben doesn't like the way Maria pales when Juliet announces over dinner one night that she has a business trip at the beginning of May, and that she'll be away for a couple of days.

"But the three of you will be fine, won't you?" she asks them all sweetly. Ben doesn't have anything against Juliet. She is kind to him, and tries her best to make him comfortable in her home.

Mark puts his hand over Juliet's and smiles. "Of course, we will, honey." He locks eyes with Maria and the smile turns wolfish, "We'll be just fine."

The night of the day Juliet leaves for her trip, Maria takes a long time in the bathroom getting ready for bed. Ben's already in his room, in bed, but not asleep. He never goes to sleep until the rest of the house is slumbering. He feels safer that way.

He can hear Mark climbing up the stairs and stopping at Maria's empty room. Heavy footfalls turn to the hall bathroom. There's a tap.

"_Maria, that you in there? It's time for bed."_

"_Go away." _Maria sounds terrified._ "Please. No more."_

There's a metallic sound, rattling. Mark is trying the door. Apparently, Maria has locked it, because he says, taunts, _"You can't stay in there all night, Maria. You'll have to come out sometime."_

"_Try me,"_ Maria snarls. _"I'm not letting you in, you _monsturo."

Mark chuckles and the sound sends shivers down Ben's spine. _"Juliet's gonna be gone for two days, Maria. Two days. You can't keep this monster away forever."_ He chuckles again. There's a slide-scraping sound, as if Mark's leaning right up against the plywood door. _"Besides, I've got a tool kit. I can take this door down to screws, put it back later, and she'll never know."_

"_No,"_ Maria whimpers, almost inaudible even to Ben's ears, but he's heard enough. Maria is frightened, and his job is to protect civilians—that's what he was created to do. It's time he did his job. He slides out of bed, silently, and opens the door to his room.

Mark's too engrossed in terrifying Maria to notice the young boy-soldier sneak up behind him. Too late, he gasps and turns, too late, because Ben's on him and they fall to the ground with a dull thud. Suddenly, Ben's on the broad back, a small (yet deadly) hand on the man's thick neck, and with a sharp _**crack**_ it's all over.

Ben's up and at the door in a second. "Maria?" he whispers through the wood.

Maria's muttering in the small room, some sort of chant or prayer. "Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros…"

He tries again, "Maria? It's me."

"_Ben?" _The voice sounds wet, as if she's been crying. _"Is he- is he gone?"_

Ben looks down at the man lying still at his feet. "Yes," he says. "He's gone. He can't hurt you anymore."

There's a soft padding of bare feet against tile in the bathroom and the door handle jiggles. With a creak, the door opens, revealing a tearstained and disheveled Maria. She's still in the clothes she had been wearing that day. One hand grasps at the pendant at her neck.

"Ben?" Dark, red-rimmed eyes open wide when they see the dead man on the ground. _"Dios mio,"_ she whispers and touches her forehead, chest, and shoulders. "He's dead?"

"Yes," Ben confirms stiffly. He doesn't know how Maria will react. He's observed in his time outside that people generally consider killing to be bad, unless it's fictional. "He was a monster," he adds. _Nomlie_.

"Good." There's a tremor in Maria's voice, but she's not scared anymore. "Good." She tears her eyes away from the still form and looks at Ben. "We have to go, Ben, run away. Or else they'll put us in jail and punish us."

"No, not you," Ben disagrees. _**"You**_ didn't kill him."

"But I won't tell them you did it," she says firmly. "They can't make me tell on you if they can't find me."

"I can't take you with me." Ben's resolve is starting to waver, however.

Zack's last orders resound in his head: _Split and go to ground_. Maria's not quite his family, but she's all he has now. Being with her was like being with his sibs again. He can't bear parting from his family (or someone he sees as family) again. Those two months alone—he felt so very lost without their support.

Maria takes his hands in both of hers. He doesn't resist. "We go together." Steady brown eyes bore into his.

"Let's go then."

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_Seattle, Washington, May 7, 2034_

"Alec?" Mila can't believe her ears. "You are Alec? _**The**_ Alec?" She looks at the tall man standing before her. "I must say, you look good for a man who has been dead for ten years. What are you?" One eyebrow ascends on her forehead. "Ghost?"

Alec chuckles. "Well, what can I say? The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." He smirks, "But really. I'm Alec. Pleased to meet you, blah-blah woof-woof, as a friend of mine used to say. Which in itself is weird, 'cause of the cat DNA in us."

Mila's staring at Alec. "You have a beard," she observes dully, eyes still wide.

A dark eyebrow is raised, amusement shining in the bright eyes under them. "Yes, that I do. Disguise. Too many people from before know how I look."

"From before…Transgenocide?" Mila's brain is still catching up.

A dark look flashes through Alec's eyes before being replaced by the wryly amused expression again. "Yeah."

"How?" Mila can't help asking. She had been told that the Transgenics had all been obliterated by the bombing. She was never going to trust the news again.

Alec shrugs. "Can't tell you. Besides, that's not what you really wanted to know, is it?" He glances at her hand, "You can put that away now, by the way. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Mila looks down where his gaze was directed. "Oh." She still has the knife out. Lip quirking sheepishly, she snaps it closed and tucks it back into her pocket. "So. My father. You know something about him?"

Alec nods, lips pursed behind the sleek beard. "Well, I can tell you something you never told Logan, or gave him the chance to ask—your dad's name. It was Ben."

Surprised, Mila blinks. "Oh, I didn't tell him that? I thought I did. I already knew that one. So you know something more about him, or just his name?"

Alec gets out of his slouch against the wall. "Well, it's not much, and I can't tell you a lot personally, but I can take you to somebody who might be able to help you out."

"You can?" Mila's wary, but excited. She's been traveling all over the country for the past year, searching for traces of a man who had been trained to disappear, and now, suddenly, a lead rises out of the ashes of Terminal City.

Alec's smile is warm. "Sure. Better get down from here first though, kid. It's starting to rain." He holds a hand out to help her down.

The first raindrops plink against the metal of the tower as they descend.

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**Translations:**

_monstruo__ = monster_

_Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros…_ = Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners (part of the Hail Mary prayer)

_Dios mio_ = My God.

**Pop culture references:**

"_**The**_ Alec?" A reference to the line _**"The**_ Dean?" from _Supernatural_. Haha, lame, I know.

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." A quote by Mark Twain.

"Blah-blah, woof-woof" _Dark Angel_ episode title.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Wow, thanks for reading and reviewing! Awesome. And now, in the adventures of Ben and Maria: The Pulse. Alec and Mila get to know each other.

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**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 5**

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_Idaho and other places in the continental United States, May—June 2009_

They sneak out of the house and onto a bus. They're in a different city by morning.

Ben knows how to pack for long journeys: as sparsely as possible, bringing only what is necessary (food, clothing, and a weapon—in this case, a small pocketknife he finds among Mark Richardson's things), but he still finds himself tucking the drawing Maria did of him into his pocket.

They survive on the food they have in their backpacks for almost a week, after which Ben has to use the skills he honed during his time outside before he'd been discovered in the church. He knows more now about where the best places to steal food from are, and what money is. Maria soon develops sticky fingers like Ben. He and Maria leave a trail of empty wallets behind them.

A month later, they're somewhere in Idaho, when they wake one morning to utter chaos.

Shouts ring out, people run about yelling about the end of the world, trampling flower beds and tipping over garbage cans. Once, Ben hears a shot fired. There's screaming, and there are crowds of people running away and mobs raiding stores. Storefront glass windows crash. More screaming. No lights; no electricity. Cars don't work, and neither do radios.

Ben and Maria huddle together, fearful of this change in the world.

It's June 1, 2009.

Soon, as the days pass, the crowds calm, although the stench of fear and paranoia is still in the air. They're cut off from the rest of the country, but news trickles in somehow. They're saying that it was terrorists, that they set off a bomb over a major American city. Others say that it was an electromagnetic pulse that wiped out every electronic device in the country. Still more disagree—it was the wrath of God, that all the evil sinners in the world are going to burn.

Ben doesn't know. He doesn't care, as long as he and Maria are safe. It's harder getting food now, but they manage. They can survive this. He prays to the Lady to keep them safe.

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_Outside Seattle, Washington, May 7, 2034_

"So it's Mila, right? Like the actress?" Alec prompts when all he gets is a mystified look. "You know, from those zombie movies?"

It's dry inside his SUV. Mila's thankful for that because her sleeping spots for the past few days have been of varying levels of dampness. She hates getting wet, and sleeping in the damp is uncomfortable. To put it frankly, it sucks like a wet noodle, as she's heard it said up here in the States. Funny Americans.

"No, it's short for Milagro. It's a Spanish name. It means 'miracle.'" She snorts and rolls her eyes. "Milagro Esperanza. That's what my mother named me. 'Miracle of Hope.' Almost fifteen years later and she was still hoping and waiting for him to come back. She would have waited longer if she hadn't gotten really sick and died." The muscles around her lips tighten and she looks away through the window.

Alec stares at her for a moment and clears his throat. "I'm sorry. So, sounds like she really loved him, huh?" Probing. Curious.

"Yeah," Mila says to the dark glass. "And he really loved her. Or at least that's what she said. I don't understand how he could have stayed away for so long if he loved her that much."

Alec can see the girl's reflection in the window. Her expression is sullen, pure teenage angst. Arms crossed and pouting slightly, she looks like any other fifteen-year-old. At that age, Alec was still doing drills, with no thought of parents and love, but he dredges up an empathic response. "Maybe it was to protect her. And you."

"He didn't know," Mila mumbles with a twist of her lip. Her voice is dull, a little angry, and a little sad.

Alec furrows his brow, confused. "What? What didn't he know?"

"About me." She gives a sigh and turns to him, eyes shining bright in the light from the street. Alec thinks it might be from unshed tears and gives an inward sigh about teenage angst. Why'd he have to come after her? She seemed perfectly fine on her own, and then he had to go after her and tell her that he could help her out with her little soap opera-like missing-or-dead-father problem.

He takes another look at the dark eyes and sad expression. Aw, who is he kidding? "Oh, I see," he says to try to stop the impending waterworks. He hates crying women and crying children even more, and this girl-not-quite-woman is pulling at his heartstrings without even trying. "You seem like a nice kid. I'm sure he would have done everything he could to protect you too."

The tactic works, because the tears in Mila's brown eyes dry up, but also has an adverse effect: She huffs and says in sudden anger, "You mean by leaving us?" Arms cross again. "I think I would rather have had him around. You don't know what it's like to grow up without a father, and always have to move around. I don't have any friends. It's like, I'm a loner."

And the tears are back again. Women. Yo-yos. Even the half-grown miniature ones.

Alec shrugs as he pulls out of the city and puts them on the road leading to their destination. He tries to sound casual as he says, "Well, can't say much for the way I was brought up, but I guess one parent's better than none." He thinks it might have fallen a bit flat because of Mila's reaction. He's getting rusty with his people skills.

The girl's mouth falls open in a round 'O' and her startled eyes widen to match, tears forgotten. "Oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm…I forgot for a moment about…I'm sorry."

He holds up a hand to stop the stammered apologies. "Hey, it's okay. You want a normal life, I get that. I don't really dig it, but I get it." He sends a smile her way to let her know that yeah, it really is okay.

Mila nods, a bit shaken, "Yeah?" She laughs a little, nervously and plays with her jacket sleeve. "You know, I don't usually talk so much to people, especially people I've just met." Dark hair falls forward over her face when she ducks her head in embarrassment. She tucks it back behind her ear in a swift movement.

Alec chuckles lightly. "Yeah, I noticed."

It's Mila's turn to be confused now, "What?"

The smile on Alec's face grows into a full-out grin. "What you told Logan. The whole thing only took about two minutes, and you were pretty tightlipped about everything."

Alec's pretty sure Mila's blushing in the dark, the way she bends her head down and runs her hand through her tangled hair. "Oh, I was? _No estaba_ _intencionado_- I mean, it wasn't on purpose. I…to tell the truth, I don't know a lot about him. My mother talked about him sometimes, but not a lot. It hurt her a little to, but sometimes, it was like she had to, you know?"

There's a sad smile playing about the soft lips now, and a furrow between her eyebrows. Alec thinks he might recognize that expression a little from looking in the mirror. He tries to swallow the sudden lump in his throat. Memories are a bitch; a bitch to think about and drown in, and a bitch to get out when they had to come out to prevent implosion. "Yeah," he manages. "I guess I do."

They drive in silence for a while after that. It's Mila who breaks the quiet.

"So how do you know Logan? I mean, I know I asked him how he knew you, but it was a little vague. He didn't tell me very much."

"Logan? He's an old friend of Max's, and she's the one who let us all out of Manticore. I was supposed to well," he coughs, "get him killed…long story" he interrupts himself to answer Mila's unasked question. "So that's why he's still antsy about talking about me. Anyway, he's the screener so that we can make sure that the fact that there's still some of us around stays on the down low. Don't want public sympathy to suddenly turn sour again." He glances over at his passenger to see if all of that makes any sense to her.

It seems like it does because the girl makes a sound of comprehension. "Ah, that explains the carefully constructed roundabout sentences." There is mirth in her voice.

Alec chuckles; he kinda likes this kid already. "Nah, that's just how Logan normally talks."

Mila giggles. "You're funny."

"_You're a funny one."_ Alec looks at the girl sitting beside him out of the corner of his eye. She's smiling at him, her brown eyes shining with amusement. She looks nothing like…Rachel, but she'd had dark eyes too. And, well, Max. He's starting to notice a pattern here. "Hey kid, your mom have brown eyes?"

A brow is raised at his abrupt question. "Random. Um, yes, she did. Why?"

Alec shrugs. "Just wondering. Must be a genetic thing," he muses, meaning the similarity in his and his twin's preferences in eye color.

Mila takes it the way it sounds, because she sniggers. "Of course it is. Brown eyes usually come from at least one parent having brown eyes. Dominant trait, you see? You are very intelligent, did you know that?"

Alec shoots a glare at the snarky teen, "Shuddup."

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**Translation:**

_No estaba_ _intencionado_ = It wasn't intentional.

**Pop culture reference:**

Milla Jovovich is an actress, most known for the _Resident Evil_ films. Jensen Ackles was at one time rumored (now proved wrong) to be in talks to appear in a RE film.

"soap opera-like missing-or-dead-father problem"—Jensen was on the soap _Days of Our Lives_ for a few years before being cast as a regular in _Dark Angel._


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Thanks again to FirstBorn for beta-ing.

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**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 6**

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_Somewhere in the continental United States, August 2009_

Ben cracks his first joke in August. It's to make Maria smile.

When she smiles, Ben feels like…he's filled with so much that he doesn't understand, but he likes it. He likes making Maria happy. _Happy_ is a new concept, another of the 'outside world' things that don't quite make sense but that instinct tells him are good. Things like smiles, laughter…chocolate.

Chocolate is good. Maria's eyes are the color of the candy bar she lifted from a store back in Iowa last week. She smiled at him as she broke it apart and gave him half. "Eat it," she'd said. "It's good." It was. Better than anything he had ever consumed.

The joke he tells is inconsequential. Just a little tease about something Maria said without thinking. It makes her pause for a moment, indignant, and then stare open-mouthed at him in bewilderment as she realizes, _Hey, _Señor Serio_ just made a joke_.

She punches him in the arm, _"Mat__ó__n_. I didn't mean it like that." But she's laughing. It's a nice sound, a happy sound.

A wisp of warmth curls in his gut and he smiles too. He catches a glimpse of himself reflected in a broken window. He looks _**happy**__._

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_Outside Seattle, Washington, May 8, 2034_

It's late but they keep driving. Alec tells Mila there isn't a motel for a long while and apologizes for dragging her out of the city in such a hurry. Seattle isn't a safe place for him.

He doesn't seem tired. Mila thinks it's probably his genes. Or maybe it's because she's used to traveling with her mother. _Mam__á_ had to stop for the night early sometimes because she got tired easily. Mila didn't mind; _Mam__á_ used to tell the best stories at night in the dark, when they were huddled against each other for warmth.

Mila's eyes grow wet and she sniffs a little. She misses her mother.

SUVs are not made for comfortable sleeping, she soon discovers. A couple times, she dozes off, but jerks awake in minutes. Sometime during her short naps, she figures Alec makes a call to Logan to tell him what's going on, because she can vaguely remember a garbled one-sided conversation: "…she's not my…were twinned…taking her to…I know, but…"

After shifting around fitfully for an hour or so, she finally gives up trying to sleep and starts another conversation with Alec. Only she's not quite awake yet so some of the words come out in half-formed Spanish, which just makes her groan and apologize.

"English is still so difficult for me," she says, rubbing hard at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Sorry. My mother used it, but not a lot, so I've been speaking it in reality only since I came to America."

Alec sounds like he's stifling a chuckle from whatever garbage spilled out of her mouth before. _"Est__á__ bien. No te preocupa, chiquita," _he replies. There's no trace of an accent, no indication in his speech that he's a _gringo_.

Mila gapes at him, curiosity piqued. "You know Spanish?" She's pleasantly surprised. She continues in English because she still needs to practice and she's awake now.

Alec shrugs, "Yeah. Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Tagalog, you name it." The languages slide off of his tongue in an offhand manner, but underneath that is a current of how he came to know those languages—it probably hadn't been very fun.

"Sindarin?" Mila asks, deliberately ignoring the dark shadow that flitted over his face. She hasn't known him very long, but she can already tell he doesn't like talking about Manticore. From what she's heard of the place, no one would.

Alec's eyebrows scrunch together comically, "What?"

"Never mind. I guess you're not a big Tolkien fan." Mila gives the confused Transgenic a cheeky smirk over her shoulder. "It's from a book."

Chuckling, he takes his eyes off of the road and glances over at the girl. "You're a big reader, huh? I had a friend once who loved to read. Little Women, Dickens, whatever he could get his big furry paws on." At Mila's curious expression at his strange wording, he says, "Dog-man."

Dark eyebrows arch up. _Wow,_ they seem to say. _That's pretty interesting. _"What happened to him?"

Alec's silent for a long while, making Mila wonder briefly if she's said something wrong. "2024," Alec says in a suddenly tired voice. "Didn't make it."

Oh. Mila looks carefully at the man next to her. Steel features. _Mask_, she thinks. _Now I know what _Mamá _meant by that. _"I'm sorry."

"Yeah." He clears his throat, "Good guy. He was an artist. His stuff's pretty popular now." He turns the radio on, volume at a low setting. Hip-hop filters through the speakers, syncopated beats vibrating through the door where Mila's head is resting.

"Yeah?" She smiles slightly, trying to nudge out a little more information that didn't have to do with death. Art she gets. Death, maybe a little, but not in a violent sense like this man has experienced. "Maybe I've heard of him. I know a little about art and artists."

"Joshua. He liked," he laughs a little, "He liked 'pretty colors' and symbolism and all that…artsy stuff." He lifts a hand off of the wheel and waves it in the air. _You know, all that stupid stuff that doesn't make a lick of sense, that art stuff._

"Hey," bursts in indignant tones from the seat beside him. _**"I**_ like 'pretty colors' and symbolism in my art."

"Oh my bad." He doesn't sound the least bit sincere. "Didn't mean to diss 'em. So you're an artist too?"

Mila shrugs, "Eh, not so much. I would like to be, but I'm not very good at it. My mother was…fantastic though. She could do all sorts of styles and she could draw anything." There's a very palpable sense of worship in her voice. Like Maria Delacruz really was the best artist in the world, and the world still just doesn't know it.

It makes him think, not for the first time, that he might be missing out on something in life. "That's pretty neat." He glances over. The girl's blinking rapidly to try to keep awake. He'd tell her to go ahead and sleep but he knows from experience that the seats of his car are very uncomfortable to sleep in. A few more miles and they'll pass someplace where they can spend the night.

"Hey, he says suddenly. "Let me see that drawing again."

Mila digs in her bag. "I never showed it to you."

Alec shrugs. "I saw it when you showed Logan." Mila looks confused. "I dropped my napkin and got up to pick it up. Saw the drawing over his shoulder." He waggles his eyebrows at her. _Clever, huh?_

"Smart," Mila smirks. "Very James Bond." She hands Alec the tattered paper.

"Well you're a smart_**ass," **_he replies while turning on the overhead light, and takes a look at the drawing. It's eerie, looking at a face that looks so much like his, yet isn't. He's never met the artist, and never will. He'll never meet the subject either. Actually, the last time he met him was in a test tube, but his twin has affected his life so much. Life at Manticore, and life after too.

Even after all these years, his daughter's here to look for signs of him. For closure.

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**Translations:**

_Mat__ó__n_ = bully

_Se__ñ__or Serio _= Mr. Serious (like you couldn't guess that one…)

_Est__á__ bien. No te preocupa, chiquita_ = It's okay. No worries, little one (term of endearment).

_Gringo_ = North American, Yankee, etc.

**Pop culture references:**

Sindarin is an Elvish language in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: This chapter is quite dark. More than a mention of underage sexual abuse. I don't say, 'penis' or other 'sex' words, but you'll definitely get what's going on. Just a warning for the very squeamish. This is as far as I'll go, though. It won't get more graphic than this (and it's not very), I promise.

But other than that, enjoy!

* * *

**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 7**

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_Indiana, September 2009_

It's September, but there's no school. Ben hadn't been aware that a school year generally begins in September and ends in June, but Maria tells him. In the beginning, she had looked at him a bit oddly when she figured out that he doesn't know much about 'normal' things like when school starts, but she's never said anything about it. Ben supposes she figures it's just a part of his dark and mysterious 'Before' that he wants to keep a secret.

It's only afterward that he finds out that she thought he was a little 'special' at first. The whispered conversation that Deputy Hudak and Juliet Richardson had had on that first day had been about his possible autism or perhaps amnesia. Apparently, some of the people who had talked to him that day were doctors. Ben doesn't like doctors.

But of course, 'autism' doesn't mean anything to Ben until he looks it up later. Ben shrugs it off. Well, what would you expect from a runaway government experiment raised in captivity with no schooling on 'how real people act'? A discourse on the adverse effects of hip-hop music on the fabric of American musical culture? Of course he was a little detached from society.

Anyway, Maria has secrets of her own. She doesn't tell him what exactly Mark Richardson would have done to her if he had been able to make his way into the bathroom that night. When he asks, she gets a hard look on her face and changes the subject.

Ben can take a hint. Bluntness does not work outside of the military compound.

Food is scarce now. Very scarce. He's seen people fight, steal, and kill for it. All over half a loaf of bread that's partially black with mold. The fungus wouldn't kill him, but he doubts genetically unmodified human stomachs could manage it. Starving people fight over it anyway.

He's also seen men offering small bits of food to others, usually young women and girls, in exchange for something that Ben doesn't understand. He gets the same unsettling feeling about them that he got about Mark Richardson. Maria always pales and pulls Ben away from them as fast as she can. However, she doesn't know about Ben's enhanced hearing, so he can sometimes hear the whimpers and crying of the young girls and deep-throated moans of…pleasure from the men. He doesn't understand completely, but he begins to.

The day comes when food hasn't passed their lips for three days (four for Ben because he gave his portion to Maria that last day when she was so weak that she had to stop walking to rest). They're standing around a metal trashcan with a fire in it trying to forget the empty feeling gnawing at their guts. They're in the company of a dirty-looking man with long strands of greasy hair falling in his face. He stinks. But he has food, enough to last him a week. Found a gas mart in the middle of nowhere, he says. Pure dumb luck.

He gets a familiar greedy look in his eyes as he lets them travel up and down their huddled bodies. "How long?" he asks. "How long's it been since you kids've had grub?"

They answer him stiffly, eyeing the sausage stick in his grubby hand with hungry expressions.

"That long? Man, you kids gotta be damned hungry." The man smiles suddenly, as if he's just thought of something. "You know, just 'cause I'm so goddamned generous, I'll give you a deal. You do a little somethin' for me, and I'll give you a can of soda and a bag of chips. Each." His teeth glow yellow in the firelight. Ben thinks he reminds him of a wolf. A predator. A low growl begins to roll deep in his throat. Ben's a predator, too.

Maria jerks away with a quick "No." She grabs Ben's hand. "Let's go. Now." Her eyes are afraid.

Ben shakes his head. "We need food." He turns to the man, "What do you want us to do?"

"Ben," Maria warns from his side. "No."

Ben can see the food in the man's pack. He's guarding it carefully, like a dog hoards a bone. "We need to eat soon, or we'll die." He meets Maria's eyes. She knows it too.

Blinking against the smoke from the fire, she nods tersely. "Fine. What do you want from us?"

The man grins. There's a piece of meat stuck in his teeth. "You, not him," he tells Maria. "It's a good deal. Four packsa food for one. Just once."

Ben frowns. "No," he says firmly, "Me or nothing." He still doesn't understand, but he's not letting Maria pay for both their food.

"Nothing, then," the man says flippantly, pulling back from the fire with a shrug. "I don't do boys. I'm not a friggin' homo." He takes a big chunk out of the meat stick. "Mmmm," he moans and rubs his belly. Ben's mouth waters at the sight. "This sure is _**real**_ tasty." He's mocking them.

Maria's jaw trembles before she clenches it. "Fine," she whispers hoarsely, stepping around the burning trashcan to the man's side of the fire. "I'll do it. But I want one of those sausage things too."

The man pops the rest of the jerky into his mouth and puts out his hand. Maria takes it, despite Ben's protestations. "We need to eat," she says, throwing his words back at him. There's a look in her eyes he's never seen before. He doesn't like it. "Stay here, Ben," she orders. "Whatever you hear, stay here."

It's an order. Ben's a soldier. He's been trained to never disobey orders, even if he disagrees with them. It's the involuntary pause he gives that allows Maria the time to follow the man to a dark spot around the corner.

Ben can't see them. But he can still hear. Maria's shallow gasp-like breaths, the man's grunts, the sound of a zipper. Ben's forehead is slick with sweat and his palms are wet. His heart's hammering in his chest. He doesn't know what's happening, but it doesn't seem pleasant. Maria lets out a whimper that sounds like a sob, and that's it for Ben. He doesn't care about orders; they could 'go to hell' (a phrase he has picked up recently). Nobody scares Maria like that.

He blurs to where the pair is concealed in the shadow of a dumpster, but hesitates when he sees what Maria had tried to hide from him. The man has got her shoved up against the rough brick wall, her hands pinned above her head. His hips are ground up close against hers and he has his face buried in the side of her neck, forcing her head to the side, neck tendons standing out in tension. There's a grimace on her face, a furrow in her brow and she's biting hard enough on her lip to draw blood. Tears run down her dirty cheeks, making streaks in the grime.

Maria whimpers again and Ben spins into action. He pulls the man away from the girl and throws him on the cold, wet ground ten feet away. He's at the stubbled throat in a second, his hands choking the life out of him. Larger hands scrabble at his smaller ones with filthy nails, but Ben has steel running through his bones; it's a futile effort to get away. Red-veined eyes roll back in their sockets as the man goes unconscious, but Ben snarls and keeps squeezing. Adrenaline pumps fiercely in his veins.

"Ben." A shaky voice calls to him. "Ben, no. Stop." It's Maria. She's curled against the wall where she'd fallen when the man had been wrenched off of her.

Ben freezes and looks up.

"Stop," she whispers. "Don't kill him." The tears still leak from her eyes as she stares at Ben crouching over the man.

Without the man's body blocking his view, Ben can see now that her pants are unbuttoned and her shirt is hiked up to an uncomfortable height. He thinks he understands now. Mark Richardson deserved to die. This man deserves it too.

"Maria," he starts, but she cuts him off.

"No." She's firm now. "Killing is bad." Maria tries to get up off the ground with the wall for support but falters with a hard sob. One arm's wound tight around her torso, but she's not injured. Not physically, at least.

Ben rushes to her side, his intent to choke the man to death temporarily forgotten. He pulls her up off of the cold concrete and puts his arms around her.

Swollen eyes open and a hand gropes in the dark to clutch at his shirt. "Ben?" Her voice is small, shaky. "Ben."

Comfort, he can do. He's done that for his sibs, and they've done that for him. "No more. You're not ever doing that again. No one's going to do that to you—_**ever."**_

She clings to him and sobs. She smells like the man he almost killed. His scent is all over her. Ben's jacket grows wet at the shoulder but he doesn't care. "Maria," he whispers, "it's okay. I'm going to take care of you."

Neither of them feels much like eating that night, but they take the food and the contents of the man's wallet with them anyway before he wakes. Food is food, and these days, no one knows where their next meal's going to come from. Nevertheless, they're both glad when the last sausage stick is gone.

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_Outside Seattle, Washington, May 8, 2034_

Mila's started to doze off again when they pass a sign that says:

**NO TE_L MOT_L — NEXT EXIT.**

There's another sign right after that one that proclaims:

**AL'S C_R SHOP ** **& ** **AUTO _ _ASS**

that makes Alec snort and nudge Mila awake. The tired teen is not impressed. "You're so lame," she mutters, before shifting in her seat again. "And your car seats suck."

"Okay, Grumpy. We're almost there," Alec replies amiably as he takes the next exit. "Then you can be Sleepy in the motel room."

"I'm sleepy now," Mila says into the crook of her arm. "And I'm not a dwarf."

Alec can't resist another poke at her, "Whatever you say, Dopey."

Mila levels a glare at him. "What's with the name-calling, _Tonto?"_

Alec raises an eyebrow at her. "Did you just call me a jackass? Nice." He nods in appreciation. "I've been told I probably have some donkey DNA in my cocktail."

Mila's next response sends him into a fit of laughter. _"Sabelotodo?"_ He chuckles. "Oh, I sure am a 'smart-aleck.' That's what I was named for," he says and snorts again.

"Seriously?" Mila stifles another yawn. "That's where 'Alec' comes from? That is funny. Living up to your name."

"Of course I am," Alec says and turns into the motel parking lot. "Keeps things interesting."

Mila snorts. "Grow up." She rolls out the door as soon as Alec shifts into 'park,' stumbling a little once she hits the ground.

The motel clerk stares at them through bleary eyes when they enter the office. It's papered with dingy yellow-brown-orange wallpaper and there's a dust-covered plastic palm tree in a planter by the door. It looks as if it was put there by some decorator with crappy taste decades before the Pulse even happened.

The guy at the desk is seven 'Z's away from conking out completely on the job. He probably doesn't get much business nowadays because the place smells like a bar. Bottles lie scattered along the back wall behind the desk. Alec bristles slightly when the guy's clouded eyes brighten when they see Mila and focus on the upper edge of the black tank top peeking out from under her jacket. Mila's curvy for her age, and the jacket doesn't do much to hide that fact.

Alec slams his hand onto the flat surface of the desk a little harder than necessary. The guy jumps. It's a little funny. Okay, a lot funny. "One room. Two queens," he tells the guy with a wolfish smile once he has his attention.

Watery eyes glance quickly at Mila before snapping back to Alec's. "You sure you want _**two**_ beds?" he asks, leering openly at the teenager.

Alec has to fight the urge to grab the guy by the collar. "She's my niece, you perv," he growls, indignant outrage saturating his voice. "Two queens."

The clerk's mouth and eyes turn into three 'O's. "Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry, man. My mistake. Sure, I can do that. Seventy bucks." He pulls a drawer open and scrambles in it a minute before emerging with a battered metal key. "Here ya go," he says, sliding it over on the table. "Room seven."

Alec slaps the money down with a steely glare and takes the key. "Thank you." He leads the way out the door, holding it open for Mila to pass through.

The motel clerk's either gotta be stupid-drunk or just plain stupid because he calls out, "Hey, babyface. I'll still be here if you're not doin' anything later."

He gets a "She'll be plenty busy _**sleeping,**_ buddy. Back off or I'll make you" and a slammed door in reply.

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**Translations:**

_Tonto_ = jackass

_Sabelotodo =_smart-aleck

**Pop culture references:**

Okay, not really pop culture, but there really is a sign in my city that says, 'AUTO ASS' instead of 'AUTO GLASS.' My juvenile sense of humor finds that simply hilarious.

Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopey: Three of the dwarves in the Disney version of _Snow White._ Can you name the other four? I never could without thinking really hard about it. Also, Sam Winchester was referred to as 'Grumpy' on _Supernatural_ by Pamela Barnes. I have no idea why; Sam's not emo at all!


	8. Chapter 8

**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 8**

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_Mississippi, October 2009_

They stay in a variety of places, often sharing space with other displaced persons, but sometimes manage to find rooms all to their own. Once, in Mississippi, they stay in a library. There are books there, shelves of books. People have used some of them as tinder to feed fires, but there are still stacks and stacks of them left.

Maria leads him to a dark aisle marked 'Fiction' and pulls out a book. The Princess Bride, the title proclaims proudly. There's a drawing of a blonde woman in a long dress riding a white horse underneath the words.

She begins reading it aloud to him by candlelight that night. He's enthralled by the story.

It's quite humorous—even he recognizes that—and it explains why things are and how they came to be, just like his stories. Of course, the book is all fiction, like the sign says. Otherwise, it would not make sense at all. (How can a city exist before a continent even does?) The possibility of the events in this story occurring is infinitely close to zero, but it is all very entertaining.

"_There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C., when Saul and Delilah Korn's inadvertent discovery swept across Western civilization,"_ Maria reads. _"(Before then couples hooked thumbs.)"_

Ben frowns then interrupts. "What's a kiss?"

He gets an incredulous look in reply. "You're not serious." Maria blinks. "Seriously? Where have you been living? Under a rock?"

Ben cocks his head. "I would rather not talk about that. I want to know what a kiss is."

Maria lets her head fall back against the wall. "Really? You're not just…trying something? No wait, you're like, ten. Only grown-ups do that stuff."

"I am trying to understand what…" he begins before she cuts him off.

"Okay, okay. You don't know that school starts in September. You've never had chocolate. You don't talk about your past but you can fight like a video game character." She wrinkles her nose and scrutinizes his face. "What are you, an alien or a robot or something?"

Ben can see the comment's made in jest, so he keeps staring at her. She doesn't know how close to the truth she is. Besides, making her squirm like that's a little amusing.

Maria grumbles, "Ugh, stop that." She slaps his thigh. "It's creepy. Okay. A kiss." She purses her lips in thought. "Weeeelllll, a kiss is…People do it when they…have great affection for each other," she finishes quickly. "That's what my _mam__á_ said. Understand now?"

Ben frowns again. "No. I do not have a thorough understanding of it." He purposefully takes the slang out of his speech to emphasize his 'roboticness.' He knows what a robot is, and finds the concept that Maria half thinks he might be one amusing.

Maria huffs out a sigh and looks away. "You're really weird. You know that? If Juliet had let us watch _**good**_ TV, you'd know what all that stuff is. Okay. Umm." She bites her lip and seems to make up her mind. "All right. Just once. Understand?"

She looks so stern that Ben finds himself agreeing with a swift "Yes, ma'am" before he knows what he's doing. Then, her face moves closer to his, so close that their lips touch. Ben's startled, but stays still. He can feel her lips soft and warm against his, and then she's pulling away.

His eyes flutter open (he hadn't realized that they'd even closed), and he can see that Maria's cheeks are flushed and her brow is furrowed in the flickering candlelight. She stands up abruptly, and swiping a sleeve across her mouth, picks out a new book from the shelf in front of them.

"What about this book?" he asks when he finds his voice. He holds up the dog-eared copy of The Princess Bride.

"I wanna read this one," she replies, and sits down where she is, several feet away from him. "You can keep reading that on your own."

She keeps that space between them the rest of the night, instead of huddled against him like usual. Her hair falls in a dark curtain, dividing them.

In the awkward silence that follows, Ben reads about the adventures of Westley and his friends in their endeavor to rescue the fair Buttercup from the evil prince. Maria falls asleep when he's halfway through Buttercup's wedding to Prince Humperdinck. Ben tucks his jacket around her sleeping body. He doesn't understand what he did that bothered her so much but he's sorry. He's new to joking, and it seems his clumsy attempt has backfired on him.

Maria shifts in her sleep, "Ben?"

He crawls closer, "Yeah?"

"Leave me alone for a while, okay?" she mumbles. "It's not you. I just need…" She falls back asleep before she can finish.

Ben goes back to his spot against the wall. "As you wish," he whispers and continues reading.

He's not tired when he finishes the book, so he picks out another one. Of Mice and Men. By the time dawn breaks, he's reading the last pages of the novel. He can't help seeing the parallels, the way the smaller Maria watches out for Ben and explains things to him, like the shorter, wiry George does for the big, powerful, lumbering Lenny in the book. Lenny doesn't understand some things in the world outside his own mind, and sometimes, Ben doesn't either. Of course, his socially ignorant state isn't permanent, like Lenny's is. And despite the cat DNA in him, Ben despises mice.

When Maria wakes, Ben hands her a granola bar and says nothing. Ben's capable of learning. He's observed that it's best to do as Maria says when she asks something of him. It's easier living with her, at any rate.

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_Motel outside Seattle, Washington, May 8, 2034_

Alec herds Mila into their motel room and locks the door behind them before he chances a look at her. "Hey, I'm really sorry about…." He stops at the amused expression on her face. "What are you laughing at?"

"I'm so pleased you care so much about me, _querido_ _tio,"_ Mila coos and reaches up to pat his cheek. He endures it in astonishment. Because, yeah, she called him her uncle…because he called her his niece first. Which is just…how'd she manage to worm her way in like that?

"Very cute and heroic. I've had a lot worse, believe me. I can take care of myself without a big man scaring away the creepy sickos," the teen says as she tosses her bag on the bed nearest the bathroom and rummages in it.

"I want the shower first, by the way," she tosses over her shoulder as she slinks into the tiny room. "It has been much too long since I've had a proper shower. They beat out sponge baths at public bathroom sinks any day."

Alec's still standing with a puzzled expression on his face when the bathroom door clicks closed. "Whoa, wait a minute," he calls through the thin plywood. "Who said you could have first dibs?"

Mila's laugh is drowned out by the sound of water hitting bathroom tiles in the shower stall. Alec stands outside the door a moment before he realizes that he can hear her undressing and eww, now he's the one perving, on his niece, no less, and boy, doesn't that just twist everything up. Alec's been an uncle for fifteen years without even knowing it. He plops down on the other bed and grabs the remote off of the bedside table between the two beds. He needs to think. He is so very, very confused about all this.

Static. That's just great. He falls back on the bedcovers with a grumble. He sighs and wonders if Mila's like Max and Cindy about 'bath time.' The thought makes him groan. He's just decided to close his eyes and take a little nap when a high shriek pierces the air.

Without a thought, he bounds off of the bed and bursts through the thin wooden door into the bathroom where the scream had come from. He's confused when it falls over to reveal the only individual in the tiny room; the very wet and very embarrassed teenager who lets out an indignant squeal once she recovers from her surprise. _"__¡Chingate!_ What the hell do you think you are doing?"

"You screamed," Alec explains helplessly as he backs out of the room, glad for once for the thick layer of disgusting green mildew covering the glass sliding door of the shower stall. Luckily, it hides all the important parts of the teen's body.

"The water is cold. And I did not scream. I made an 'eep,'" she huffs. "Now get out already. And fix the door."

Alec acquiesces and props the door back up against the jam as best he can. "What the hell is an 'eep'?" he mutters to himself. "And it was too a scream."

He shifts the covers back onto his bed from where he'd dragged them on the way to his 'rescue.' "What have I gotten myself into?" he asks the room. "I don't do the 'pick up stray puppies and kittens and random orphans' routine. I'm not Max." The shower noise stops and the sound of clothes rustling comes from behind the propped-up door. "Nope, I am not Max." He sighs, "Hi, my name is Alec and I am a big softie. Dammit."

"Talking to yourself is a sign that you're going a little bit _loco,_ you know?" Mila comments, emerging from the bathroom and drying her hair with a worn towel. She raises her eyebrow at the unhinged door as she replaces it.

"Aw, shuddup," Alec says, and gets his toiletries out of his bag. "You done primping in there? I gotta pee."

"Primping?" Mila gasps, mock offended. "I only took half an hour and it would have been shorter if you didn't interrupt me. Which, dude…relax. Who's gonna attack me in the bathroom? Psycho is not real. Well, _**you**_ might be psycho, but _El_ _Asqueroso_ out there is not Norman Bates."

"Go to bed," Alec tosses out as he brushes by her. "And no late-night TV for you: the set's broken."

Mila was right. The water's freezing, but it feels good, in a way. It calms him down and lets him gather his thoughts. Seriously, he's the last person who should be travelling cross-country with a young girl professing to be the daughter of his long-lost clone. _**Dead**_ clone. Semantics.

Anyway, he's in no way a mother-hen, travel-with-kids kind of guy. What's next? A minivan? He's independent, dammit. This girl's cramping his style. How's he supposed to get laid if he has to babysit? He takes a deep breath and tells himself, _It's only for one more day. _One more day until they get to their destination.

The previously mentioned girl isn't asleep when he steps out of the bathroom into the dark bedroom and carefully puts the door back in its place. The icy-cold shower woke him up a little, so he guesses it did the same for her. Or maybe she doesn't quite trust him yet. She's pretending to be sleeping, however, so he isn't going spoil it for her and tell her that she's breathing too unevenly not to be faking.

He gets in his own bed and finds it's as hard and lumpy as a mattress full of rocks. This night's just getting better and better, isn't it? He can deal. He's slept in worse conditions before. Much worse, actually. He punches his pillow into submission.

Still, he's got some things on his mind that are keeping him from zonking out. "What was she like?" he finds himself asking, breaking the silence in the darkened room.

There's a catch in Mila's breath. "My mom?" Her voice quivers a little.

"Yeah," he breathes. What was it about her that made Ben stay with her so long? Familiarity? The feeling of being safe? He remembers Rachel. Vulnerability? Love?

Mila exhales. "I don't know, really. She was just…my mom. Like she took care of me and made sure I was warm and had enough food and was happy. She loved me." There's a distinct sniffle before she continues. "I just felt like she wasn't all there sometimes though. Not," she corrects herself, "not like she was crazy 'not all there,' but like _**he **_took part of her with him when he left. Like there was a Ben-shaped hole in her heart. And it killed her."

Alec keeps quiet. He doesn't want to say anything for fear she'd stop, not that he'd know what to say anyway even if he wanted to talk.

A watery laugh comes from the next bed. "I mean, I didn't even know her from before he left because I wasn't born yet, but just sometimes…You know?"

"Yeah, kinda," he whispers. It's hard to get it out; there seems to be something in his throat, choking him. "I get it." He clears his throat. "Nice tat by the way."

He gets a snort in response and smiles as he closes his eyes for the night.

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**Translations:**

_mamá_ = mom

_querido tio_ = dear uncle

_¡Chingate! =_ Okay, I lied about the swearing. This is apparently the (Mexican) Spanish version of 'F- you.'

_El Asqueroso_ = the creep

_Loco_ = crazy (Also a slight reference to the DA episode Ben was in, "Pollo Loco.")

**Pop culture references:**

The Princess Bride: See note in Chapter 2. "As you wish" is something Westley says to Buttercup. So romantic…insert dreamy smile here

Of Mice and Men: Novel written by John Steinbeck. Yeah, I was going to use a different book here (maybe the Lord of the Rings series, or O. Henry), but this sort of stuck. And you know how the book ends…

Psycho, Norman Bates: Brilliant Hitchcock film that features an infamous shower killing scene. Just awesome.


	9. Chapter 9

AN: Sorry for the delay; I've been pretty busy with real life. This is also a warning that chapter 9 is the last chapter I have written as of now, so I won't be posting until I get my real life stuff done and another couple chapters written. Sorry! (Not that all that many people are reading anyway…)

Thanks to FirstBorn for editing, and to celeste.g.r for the help with Spanish.

**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 9**

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_Louisiana, November 2009_

They spend Maria's birthday in a small town in Louisiana.

Maria's back to being her usual 'explain things to Ben in an exasperated-yet-affectionate way' self after that night at the library in Mississippi. No, not quite normal yet—she's still closed off and stiffens at a touch—but she huffs a sigh and clarifies whenever she sees confusion in Ben's face (and try as he might, he still frequently fails to understand some things). Ben doesn't ask questions verbally anymore, especially when the last one ended with his primary source of information (Maria is full of explanations for his neverending questions, but he realizes that she is also more than an informant) becoming suddenly so distant from him.

"What day do you think it is?" Maria muses one day, startling Ben with a question of her own.

"Thursday, November 19, 2009," Ben replies instantly, eager to provide an answer of his own for once. "The time is close to…" he peers at the position of the sun, "1300 hours."

Maria raises an eyebrow at him, _weirdo,_ and heaves a dismal sigh. "We missed my birthday." She frowns and scuffs her battered sneaker against the concrete of the sidewalk. "I'm ten now, I guess."

Ben tries to decipher the meaning of 'birthday' on his own ('day of birth,' perhaps), but can't understand why it would be important to Maria. He thinks he keeps the question out of his face, but Maria apparently knows him too well because she picks up on it anyway.

Both eyebrows go up this time. "Your birthday is the day you were born, Ben," she says slowly.

A brief look of annoyance crosses Ben's face at that, since yes, he's already solved that by himself. He still doesn't understand why…

"It's important because that's how you know exactly how old you are." Ben begins to think that Maria might be psychic. He's heard Manticore had an interest in developing psychic attributes in some of their soldiers, so he thinks the idea might not be completely 'out there.'

"You celebrate the day you're born," Maria continues. "You have a birthday party with _piñatas,_ and presents, and all your friends and your whole family's there, and there's _**cake."**_ Maria's voice is breathlessly dreamy at this point, like when they'd been living with the Richardsons and she'd been talking about her life 'Before.' There's a smile on her face. "You blow out the candles and make a wish. It's great."

"What's cake?" The question slips out before he can help it. Some soldier he would have made in the field; lack of control.

The look Maria gives him now is even more disbelieving than when he'd asked about the nature of a kiss. As if—yes, here it comes—_**"What?" **_she explodes? "Cake. You have never had cake before. Ever. In your life. _Ay, Dios mio._ Not even a Twinkie?" Her voice squeaks during the last exclamation. Her arms are held out away from her sides, both hands open and the palms facing him. "Ben."

Ben thinks. "No," he says. "No, I have not. Is it a food item?" he queries. It certainly sounds like one.

"'Is it a food…'" Maria repeats. "No, Ben, it's a pony. Yes, cake is food. It's sweet and fluffy and comes in all sorts of flavors. Sometimes, they have fruit on them, like strawberries, or kiwis—those are gross, by the way—and cherries. And frosting. It's like clouds in your mouth. Heavenly."

Ben wants to point out that clouds are simply droplets of water suspended in the atmosphere due to the properties of vaporization, but he doesn't. He knows how often Maria talks about seeing shapes in cloud formations, just like the way he used to see birds and other creatures in the shadows he made with his hands on the dorm wall at night.

"What are the candles for?" he asks. Maria frowns, her train of thought about the merits of cake interrupted. "You said you blow them out and make a wish. What does extinguishing the flame accomplish?" he wants to know.

"To make the wish, you dummy." Ben's blank look eggs her on. "A wish is a dream your heart makes," she says in a voice that's different from her normal speaking voice and giggles. She rolls her eyes and her expression changes to the expression she sports when he doesn't 'get' something.

"A wish," she continues, "is when you ask for something to happen. But you're not supposed to tell anyone what you wish for, or it won't come true."

Ben doesn't understand how the blowing out of the candles correlates to wishing. He does think he comprehends the concept of wishing, however. It's like asking the Blue Lady to help his unit to escape and for her to protect them.

"I guess it's no use asking when your birthday is, huh?" Maria asks. "Maybe you could just pick a day."

Maybe he's silent for too long because Maria sighs again, wistfully this time, and says, "Doesn't matter now. I haven't had a good birthday since my parents died. Birthdays don't mean anything anymore."

And that's the end of that conversation.

. . . . . . . . . .

The following day, Ben's searching for food when he comes across a woman with a box that proclaims 'Hostess Twinkies' in large letters. Inside are two small yellow loaves of some kind of soft, spongy bread. He barters his belt for one package of them. It's leather, and should have lasted him a few years yet.

The way Maria's face lights up when he pulls the cellophane-wrapped cakes out of his pack that afternoon when they meet up again to share their spoils of the day makes it worth the sacrifice. He pulls out two candle stubs, and he's surprised when she hugs him tight. She hasn't initiated touch in a month, and he's strangely pleased that he's gotten such a reaction from her.

She laughs when he lights the candles, and it makes him smile too, to see the dancing flames on the wicks. Maria blows them out with a grin, and after a brief struggle with the crinkly plastic, hands him one of the squished yellow lumps. "You eat it," she says with a smirk, remembering how he hadn't known what to do with the chocolate a few months back.

Maria was right. Cake is…heavenly. The Twinkie tastes like clouds.

Dark eyes twinkle at him, amused at his reaction. "Toldja."

They lick the cream filling off of their fingers and swipe pink tongues around their mouths to pick up any sweetness left over.

Ben rubs his hands on his pants to get the stickiness off. "May second," he says carefully.

Maria's concentration is on her sugary hands. She glances his way. "Huh?"

"May second," he repeats. "That's the day we escaped. That's my birthday."

Maria cocks her head to the side. A moment later, she nods in approval and says, "Good choice."

They relight the candles and Ben shows her his hand shadows on the wall of the abandoned house they're staying in this month. It turns out that Maria knows a couple he's never seen before.

Dogs chase rabbits and cats paw at eagles on the wall until they fall asleep curled up close against each other.

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_Outskirts of Renslow, Washington, May 8, 2034_

Mila bites out a full-hearted groan at the prospect of spending the whole day in the ultra-uncomfortable passenger seat of the black SUV. She peers in the back, where the seats have been taken out and there are crates in their place.

"What are all those boxes?" she asks.

Alec starts the engine. "Hm? Those? It's just stuff I've picked up here and there."

"Oh," Mila nods, dissatisfied, "I see. 'Stuff.'" She shifts so that her whole body's facing Alec. "So where have you been? All over the United States?"

Alec grins. "Oh yeah. All over. California to New York, Florida to Washington. I've been everywhere."

"Yeah? Me too." Mila sees the look Alec gives her. "What? I have."

"Really? Where else in this beautiful country have you been? Do tell." He opens his eyes wide at her and smiles with all his sparkling white teeth, showing her how attentively he is listening, "It sounds fascinating."

Mila shoves his right shoulder. "You're mean." She shifts again; this time, more out of emotional discomfort than physical. Dark lashes flutter down to hide her eyes. "I started looking for my father last year, and you know," she shrugs, "I went all over."

Alec frowns. "So what, you just went around the US randomly looking for your dad and showing people that drawing? Isn't that a little…inefficient?"

"No," Mila huffs indignantly, "I'm not stupid. I started in the village in _México _where…_Mam__á_ died, and just went backwards from there until I got to the border. Then I made…" She stops and furrows her brow. "How do you call? Detour?"

With a satisfied nod, she resumes her tale. "I made a detour to Seattle because _El Transgenocidio_ was there. I went to _Ciudad Terminal_ and found nothing, of course. So I continued with following where _Mam__á_ traveled up to where she and my father separated. Then I came back to Seattle again because I saw the television. You know," she explains, "because it was the ten years anniversary of the bombs."

Alec hums in comprehension. "And then you found out about Jam Pony and got to me through Normal and Logan."

Mila smiles. "Yes. And now? I don't know where you're taking me, but you know something more, I think."

Alec feels skewered under the teen's gaze. There's a reason he hasn't told her about what's really happened to her dad. Alec hates dirty jobs, and telling a fifteen-year-old kid that her dad went psycho and offed a bunch of people before getting killed himself—_**that's**_ a dirty job.

So he says, "Well, maybe I do, maybe I don't, but let's not talk about that before breakfast, huh? It's the most important meal of the day." Having said that, he turns into a tiny roadside diner that's seen much better days.

. . . . . . . . . .

Alec isn't sure if the scowl Mila's sporting is because she's having trouble reading the English on the menu or if it's a reaction to the selection depicted on it.

"I'll have a…medium stack with eggs and sausage," he says.

The waitress has pink plastic curlers in her stringy ginger hair, which draws more attention to the fact that she hasn't had it dyed in a while; gray shows at the roots. She probably didn't bother getting up early to look nice; this crappy place most likely gets about twenty customers a week, tops. She scribbles on her pad with a stubby pencil. "Coffee?" Her voice is nasally and Alec suppresses a wince as it reverberates in his sensitive ears.

Still, he gives her his most charming smile; it never hurts to flatter people. "Can I have milk?"

The middle-aged woman's cheeks burn red as she simpers back at him. "Yeah, sure, hon." A cough to her right draws her attention back to her job.

"I'll have the same thing," Mila says brightly. She flutters her eyelashes at the waitress, who utters an "Alrighty then," and waddles away to put in their order. She looks over her shoulder at Alec and gives her oversize hips an exaggerated sway on the way there.

Once the woman's looking away, Mila begins to giggle behind her hands.

"What?"

Mila allows herself an unladylike snort before she responds. "She's really, um, _**pretty.**_ Am I going to have a new auntie, Uncle Alec?"

Alec scoffs at the grinning girl. "Just because I'm handsome and all the women love me," he says primly, leaning back and stroking his beard, "does not mean that I take advantage of them."

Mila snorts again. "Yeah, right. I bet you don't."

Alec shrugs, "Okay, maybe a little."

He gets a disbelieving look in reply. "A little?"

He laughs, "Alright, maybe a lot. But hey, if you've got it, flaunt it."

Mila puts on a thoughtful look. "You know, that isn't a bad idea. Maybe I can do it too. I bet I can get lots of things for free if I just work my…"

"Wait a minute," Alec cuts her off with a suddenly disapproving look, "you can't do that. You're like, still a kid. Nice girls don't do that shit."

Mila smirks, "I _**am **_a nice girl. I meant, just smile at guys and flirting a little. Nothing like _**that,**_so stop thinking dirty."

Alec's just opening his mouth to retort when Flo waddles back with their food. "Here's yer grub," she says in her piercingly nasal voice, and leaves, after a quick flutter of her sparse eyelashes at Alec.

The food looks…well, 'unappetizing' might be too generous a word for it. The pancakes are tiny, burnt around the edges, and soggy in the middle. The eggs are runny and the sausages are reminiscent of dog turds. Grease runs out of them, pooling and congealing at the edges of each plate.

Mila pokes at her goopy egg with her fork, "Looks delicious. I dare you to take the first bite."

Alec snorts and grabs his fork. "Take you up on that dare," he says and shovels a mouthful down his throat. 'Gross' doesn't even cover the sensations that result from the action—the salty, slightly sulfuric flavor and slimy consistency of the eggs, the gristle in the sausages, and the too-sweet taste of the syrup he drowned the whole lot in. He washes it down with a gulp of milk.

"Your turn," he gasps with a smirk and slams his glass down on the pockmarked table.

Wrinkling her nose daintily, Mila scoops up a bit of egg and examines it carefully before placing it in her mouth. She chews a little and swallows with a grimace. _"Desagradable,"_ she gags, and sips at her own milk.

By this time, Alec's already on his fifth mouthful. "What? It's food. I know it's gross, but you should eat. Never know when you'll get your next meal."

"Are you planning on starving me?" Mila grouses as she picks her fork up again. "This is nasty."

Alec chuckles. "Just pretend it's your favorite food."

The teen makes a sound that sounds something like "Psh" and takes another bite of the revolting stuff. "Mmm, _que rica."_

Alec pauses eating to watch Mila with amusement as she chokes her breakfast down. "So what is it? What is little Mila's favorite food in the whole wide world?"

Mila spears another piece of pancake. Watery syrup drips off the end of it. _"Tarta,"_ she says, _"__Tarta de cumpleaños. _Or in America, Twinkies. Twinkies are awesome."

This makes the Transgenic laugh heartily, drawing the attention of the only other people in the diner: the red-headed waitress and the pot-bellied cook, probably her husband. "Keep it down out there," the man hollers from the kitchen.

The guilty duo looks up in time to see their waitress whap the man across the head with a spatula. "They're customers, Ron. Behave. It's nice to hear someun laughin' nowadays. We don't get too much o' that out here in the middle o' nowhere."

"Aww, she's defending your honor like the knight in the fairytale," Mila stage-whispers across the table. "How romantic."

"Shut your trap and eat, brat," is Alec's dignified reply.

"Can't eat if my trap is shut," Mila shoots back and shoves a sausage in her mouth. She regrets it once she does, because the offensive taste makes her want to throw up.

Alec gets the last word this time: He laughs at the contorted expression she makes as she tries to swallow the disgusting mouthful.

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**Translations:**

_Piñatas_ = piñatas (of course). These are little papier-mâché animals you hit with a stick at parties to make the candy stuffed inside fall out. Sounds quite barbaric when you think about it, doesn't it? But who cares—it's candy rain!

_Ay, Dios mio_ = Oh my God.

_El Transgenocidio = _'Genocide' is _'genocidio,'_ so logically (in my world), 'Transgenocide' would be this.

_Desagradable =_ nasty, disgusting

_Que rica = _how yummy

_Tarta de cumpleaños_birthday _cake_

**Pop culture references:**

Twinkies are said to have a shelf life of forever. Not true, but apparently, they can last for a couple decades without going bad. Um, ew? Not a big fan of them in the first place, but vintage Twinkies…kinda gross.

"A wish is a dream your heart makes." Lyrics from a song in Disney's Cinderella_._

May 2: Um, can't help referencing _Supernatural,_ can I? It's Sam's birthday, aka 'the day Dean (and the Impala) almost died and the day both the brothers died, as well as the day they let Lucifer out.' Also, in this story, it's Transgenocide Day, which also happens to be Alec's birthday.


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Sooooo sorry about the long delay in getting chapters up…again. I had a wild, crazy summer, then I got sidetracked by prettyshinysparkly _Supernatural_ plot bunnies (yes, they sparkle, just like those vampires from _Twilight_), and _**then**_ school started. Real life—what a hassle. So anyway, here's the next installment of "Why Did Ben Turn Into a Crazy Chicken" aka "The Wound of Sorrow."

Thanks so much to FirstBorn for putting up with my silly "Does the period go _**here**_ or _**here**_? Or should that be a _**semicolon**_? Or a _**comma**_? What's another word for 'body'? Help me! *flails*" questions.

* * *

**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 10**

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_Alabama, December 2009_

December this year is cold, even though they're in the southern United States where it is supposed to be warmer, or so Ben had been taught back at Manticore. It's certainly not cold enough to snow here, but it's cold enough.

Ben doesn't feel the drop in temperature as much as Maria does, but even then, his grubby two layers—a ratty t-shirt with an adult-sized flannel shirt over it—do little to shield him from the biting wind. He'd shrugged his jacket off and covered Maria's thin shoulders with it back in October when she'd begun to shiver from the lack of the sun's life-giving warmth after dark.

She finds a ragged scrap of what was once a blue blanket one day and offers it to Ben. He shakes his head; he's warm enough, and besides, Maria needs it more. She's not built to withstand cold temperatures like he is, and he's noticed her voice has developed a scratchy, hoarse quality in recent days. Swallowing seems painful (sometimes to the point that it keeps her from eating, much to Ben's concern), and every now and then, she clears her throat and winces. Her body temperature has risen too. Her skin feels warmer than Ben's, but she shivers all the same. She doesn't move as fast as she used to, either. It seems to hurt her, as if she's sore all over.

Maria never complains, but Ben knows what's wrong: she's sick. 'Sick' had no meaning for him at Manticore, but since he has gotten out, he's seen what having a weaker immune system than his results in. Ever since the end of summer, people all around them have been shivering and coughing and hacking up gobs of rust-colored phlegm. He's seen the paleness, the hectic color in the emaciated cheeks, the fever-bright eyes. He's seen the dead as well—people die from falling ill in a world where food and medicine are scarce.

Maria can't die. Therefore, he refuses the tattered cloth again. Maria raises a brow, _"You sure?"_ and wraps the dirty blue material around her head, tying the ends securely under her chin. Ben is once again strongly reminded of Blue Lady by the statues he sees in the churches Maria takes them to sometimes. He goes in with her and sits beside her as she sits down in the pews and mutters, _"Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia…"_ over and over again with her eyes closed and cold fingers grasping the golden pendant she still wears around her neck.

Ben recognizes them as the same words as those she'd chanted that night he'd found Mark Richardson terrorizing her, the night he'd killed without a thought apart from being a good soldier and protecting Maria, the night she ran away with him.

He asks once, and she tells him she's praying. He tries to ask further what exactly prayer is, but she shushes him. It's quiet in the church; maybe that's why. It's like in the barracks, when you're not supposed to talk after lights out, but you can whisper if you're careful.

He surmises that praying is like wishing. Maria says it's different, but she won't, or can't, explain what the difference is. She doesn't pray much now, not out loud, anyway. She doesn't say much at all. It hurts too much to talk.

She leads him to a church one day when it's raining. Each drop of water feels like ice, and they can see their breaths making clouds of fog in front of them. This chapel has stained glass windows and long wooden benches, much like other churches, but today, there are many more people inside than usual.

"It's Christmas," Maria whispers to him in her broken-glass voice.

"What's that?" Ben whispers back.

She puts a finger over her lips and points to an elderly man dressed all in black except for a white collar, who has just stepped onto the raised platform in front of the statue of the man nailed to the giant wooden cross in the front of the room. The Blue Lady stands directly under him. She is as warm and kind as ever, in all her regal glory.

"Listen."

The priest (Ben is reminded of Father John from Minnesota, back in March a lifetime ago) talks about a woman named Mary (_"La Virgen Maria,"_ Maria says under her breath, nodding along) and the birth of a child. It's an interesting story, but Ben's already read a version of it before, at a library in Mississippi. He hadn't understood the allure of it then, but looking at the rapt faces around him, he thinks that there may be something to it after all.

Maria believes it. She hasn't led him astray yet. He trusts her, as much as if she'd been in his unit. Ben feels a pang in his chest as he thinks of his brothers and sisters. He wonders where they are today, what they're doing, if they're alone or if they've found someone to keep the loneliness at bay like he has. He misses them.

Everyone in the church is kneeling now, their knees resting on the wooden bar at the foot of the benches and their hands clasped together. Many of them have their eyes closed and their faces are upturned. Maria's doing the same, and she's praying in Spanish, her cracked lips moving soundlessly (except for the perpetual labored wheezing from her lungs) around the fluid syllables. Ben thinks that maybe he ought to do the same, to blend in.

He gets on his knees, and the hard surface bites into his bony joints. He can see the Blue Lady from where he is, so he…prays to her, to keep his family safe and to make Maria well, to make her strong.

Beside him, Maria moans once and slumps down. Ben catches her in his arms and holds her tight. Heat radiates from her twitching body, and her head falls back limply against Ben's shoulder. The blue cloth around her head slips off, letting loose a halo of unwashed hair, dark against her face, which is wan under the accumulated grime of the past seven months.

Ben turns to the Blue Lady.

"Help me."

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_A little past the Washington-Oregon state line, May 8, 2034 _

Mila shifts in her seat for the fifth time in as many minutes. Sixty-seven times altogether since they'd left the diner.

Alec glances over at her. Tiny droplets of sweat bead her hairline and her dark curls hang limply, hiding her face. She's leaning against the window, the side of her forehead against the cool glass. "You okay, kid? Too warm in here?" he asks, reaching for the AC control.

Mila opens her mouth to answer, but clamps it back shut and shakes her head instead.

"Uh." Alec doesn't know what's wrong with the kid. She can't be hungry already; they just ate what, two hours ago? It was crappy food, but it was food, and she ate the whole thing, same as him. Even he isn't hungry yet, despite his fast metabolism. So it's not that.

Bathroom break, maybe. Girls have to pee a lot, don't they? "Do you have to you know, go?" he asks as delicately as possible.

He gets another baffling head-shake in response. Al-righty.

"So, uh, what's wrong?" Maybe he hurt her feelings somehow. Odd, they'd only talked about the normal sort of thing you talk about with a newfound test-tube relative. Like, you know, ordinary conversation stuff.

This time, she turns her head and meets his eyes. Goddamn, the kid looks miserable. Pale, clammy skin, pinched around the mouth (still tightly clamped shut), dull eyes. With her arms wrapped around her middle and her shoulders hunched over like that she looks…oh.

"Are you sick?" Only logical choice left.

Stupid question. Mila obviously wants to roll her eyes, if it wouldn't make her even more nauseous. This realization should stop a normal person. But of course, being related to Alec, she goes ahead and indulges in a spectacular eye-roll…and promptly gags.

With a shout of, "Whoa!" Alec quickly maneuvers the SUV onto the mercifully empty shoulder as Mila scrabbles at the passenger door and practically falls out of the moving vehicle in her haste to empty her stomach anyplace that isn't in her lap.

The retching sounds coming through the open door from outside make Alec wince in sympathy. He gets out and walks over to where Mila is heaving up her breakfast and then some. He squats down next to her and pats her back awkwardly.

Huh, so is that what partially-digested pancake looks like? Nasty. Interesting, but still gross.

She finally stops vomiting, and just stays there, on her hands and knees, arms shaking like Alec's do after a few thousand push-ups in one go. There are strings of saliva hanging from her hair and mouth. She dry-heaves a few more times and pants.

"Um, are you okay?" Alec tries tentatively, tapping her back again.

Mila sniffs and lets the breath out through her mouth. "Do I look okay?"

Rhetorical question. At least she's still sarcastic. Lovely. "Are you done ralphing? Can you, um, get up and get in the car? We shouldn't stay here." That might sound a little cruel, but taking into account that 'here' happens to be the middle of nowhere, he thinks she might want to be sick somewhere more comfortable. There are trees on both sides of the road, and nothing else for miles.

"_Momento,"_ Mila gasps and sits back on her heels. She pulls her sweaty hair back and wipes her mouth on her sleeve. She groans, "Okay."

"Okay?" Yeah, she doesn't look okay to Alec. Her face is still gray and her hands are shaking.

"No, not okay," the sick teen snarks back weakly as she folds her arms over her roiling stomach. "I hate you." She dives forward and proceeds to vomit once more.

Something tells Alec they're going to be parked there for a while. He holds back her hair while she pukes. After all, it's gentlemanly to make oneself useful around young women who are hacking up their breakfasts.

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**Translations:**

_Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia…_ = Hail Mary, full of grace… (The first line of the Catholic Hail Mary prayer)

_La Virgen Maria_ = The Virgin Mary

_Momento = _moment

**Pop Culture References:**

The Blue Lady is, obviously, the Virgin Mary.

"Ralphing": Alec calls an X6 girl "Ralph" in "Bag 'Em" because she threw up after seeing one of her unit-mates wounded.

That's basically it for pop culture references in this chapter.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Wound of Sorrow**

**Chapter 11**

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_Alabama, January 2010_

Ben sits cross-legged by the makeshift bed and sighs. He's tired. Tired and hungry. He knows that he should get a few hours of sleep and eat some of the food he has in his pack, but he can't bring himself to do either.

Maria looks so…vulnerable and weak, lying there pallid and wan in the cocoon of newspapers and blanket scraps that Ben has wrapped her in to keep her warm. She needs the rest and the food more than he does.

So he sits. He remembers.

He remembers the panic he'd felt when she'd collapsed into his arms at the church last month, the raw fear. There were people all around them, suffocating him, trying to take her away from him. They had to get out; he'd known he had to get them out of there.

Then the priest was there. He'd looked at them with kind eyes and led them away into a small room with a couch at the back of the church. Maybe he'd seen the possessiveness in his eyes (Ben had never had anything that was _**his**_, and Maria was his, and his alone), but he hadn't touched either of them, had simply allowed Ben to carry her himself, watching carefully to see that he didn't drop her.

As if he would ever drop her.

He'd given them water and Ben a morsel of food (that immediately went into his pocket for later), and told him about a clinic three blocks to the west where they treated sick people. "It's run by a nonprofit organization," he'd said. Ben didn't know what that meant, but he had known that the moment the man had said, "doctor," he wouldn't be taking Maria there.

Doctors are cruel and cold. They are synonymous with pain and suffering. Maria needed warmth; she needed Ben. He'd take care of her. That was his mission; the Blue Lady had shown him.

The priest, Father DeSoto, had seen that, seen the resolve in his eyes, and he'd tried to coax Ben into taking Maria there, but he held firm. He wasn't going to let them hurt her, he'd told the man, standing to lift Maria off of the worn sofa and take her away from the stranger.

"Wait," the father had said, "They won't hurt her, I promise. Trust me. They'll try to make her well."

Ben knows when people are lying. Detecting lies is one of the things _they'd_ drilled into him, just like they'd trained him to deceive flawlessly. This priest hadn't been lying.

Maria could have told him that. She'd been scandalized when he'd suggested one day that another priest in another town hadn't been telling the truth. "Priests don't lie. That's just….Priests don't lie. It's bad to lie."

Maria doesn't lie either (except when she tells Ben that she's fine when she's clearly not), so Ben'd had little reason to disbelieve this priest. Maria had said to trust priests.

He'd let the man lead them to the place he'd spoken of. There were lights inside, electricity-powered, not flickering candlelight. They had a generator running in the building.

There had been a long line—people sitting outside in the cold rain, waiting for their turn, and inside, a whole room full of people who'd gotten there first. All were sick, and most were dying. A couple of them were already dead, but no one wanted to move the bodies for fear of contagion.

Father DeSoto had waited with them the entire time, standing with his umbrella over the three of them to keep the rain off. He hadn't asked them their names, or where they were from, or where their parents were. He'd simply spoken of the miracle of Christmas, the kindness of man, the glory of Christ. Ben hadn't listened much; he'd been too conscious of the quiet sounds of pain Maria was making, the limp weight of her fever-ridden body, her increasing pallor (just like a dead man's, like the Nomlie they'd hunted back at Manticore), the gasping breaths becoming increasingly shallower.

It was night by the time they'd gotten to the desk inside the room. "What is the patient's name?" the man there had asked, obviously bone-weary and tired of sitting there taking names down.

Ben hadn't wanted to give a name, but the man insisted, and even the priest was looking at him, as if expecting him to say it. So he'd said, "Juliet." Like Juliet Richardson, who'd been kind to the both of them, even though her husband had been a Nomlie.

"And yours?"

"Inigo." He'd liked that name when he'd read the book. It had a nice ring to it: 'My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.'

How was Ben supposed to know that 'Inigo' wasn't a common name, especially for someone who looked like him? That's why he needed Maria so badly; she told him these things without looking at him too strangely, like the man at the desk had when he'd given that alias.

"Montoya?" the man had said, suddenly waking up and with a smirk starting to tweak the corners of his mouth.

Ben had blinked then said, "Westley." He'd said it with confidence; it would never do to show fear in the face of the enemy, if he was an enemy.

"Inigo Westley." Having written that on the form, chuckling slightly, the man had pointed to Maria, still in Ben's arms. "Would that be Juliet Buttercup, then? Middle name Princess? Or is it Capulet?"

Father DeSoto had stepped in then. "Do the names of these children matter, young man?" he'd said sternly, "The girl is ill, and it is in your power to get her the care she needs, _**as soon as possible**__. _The Lord knows their true names, but we do not need to know them for you to treat her. Write down DeSoto for them both."

The man at the desk, thus chastened, had muttered, "Sorry, Padre. Are you their legal guardian?"

With Father DeSoto speaking for them, Ben had finally been directed to put Maria down on a small cot, covered with a white sheet and with a thin pillow at the head of it. He'd been allowed to stay with her, if only because Maria had woken and croaked out, "Ben?" in such a scared and broken voice that he'd latched onto her hand and wouldn't be moved. Ben would later deny that he'd growled and bared his teeth at the poor nurse who'd tried to detach him. He hadn't.

The way the doctor had diagnosed Maria still made Ben tense, just thinking about it. It hadn't been as invasive as the daily checkups he'd been subjected to at Manticore, but the doctor had poked and prodded with his cold metal instruments, and Maria had whimpered so, that Ben had almost attacked the man. It was only Father DeSoto's hand on his shoulder that kept him from jumping at the doctor's throat. Maria had said to trust priests.

Rheumatic fever. That's what the doctor had said Maria had.

They'd poked and prodded some more then inserted an IV needle into her arm, bags of clear liquids flowing through the IV. Antibiotics and fluids. Ben hadn't wanted the needle anywhere near Maria, but they'd explained that she needed it because she wasn't able to swallow anything at all, her throat was so sore and swollen, and she'd needed the medication and the nutrients.

He'd stayed with her (and didn't leave for longer than the time it took to relieve himself) for the rest of their week-long stay at the clinic. They wouldn't let her stay longer (and Ben didn't want her to) because they needed her bed. The swelling in Maria's throat had gone down enough for her to swallow liquids, her fever was down, and all she really needed now was rest and more antibiotics. And something called digitalis.

It's a heart medication. Maria needs it now because her heart was damaged.

When they'd first told Ben, he'd been horrified. How could they say that her heart was _**damaged**_, as if it was broken, as if it didn't work? Maria's heart was anything but that. Maria, with her heart so big and warm (like the Blue Lady's), who'd been so kind to him even when he was so very strange to her, who'd kept him from the loneliness that had threatened to drive him mad in the month after he'd run away from Manticore and before he'd met her, Maria, who hadn't been afraid of him even when he'd shown her what he was capable of doing.

Then they'd said that it was the illness that had done it, that she needed to take the little white pills to keep her heart going strong.

They'd sent them 'home' with Father DeSoto. The priest had wanted them stay with him, but Ben had known better than to do that. To do so might lead anyone looking for Ben to find him (and Maria) because DeSoto had given his own name at the clinic.

So he'd taken Maria across town to an abandoned building that had doors and walls strong enough that it wasn't drafty and that had few people living in it. He'd wanted to take her outside of the city, maybe even out of the country, but she wasn't strong enough for that. They'd have to stay here until she could handle the strain of travelling.

He'd done everything he could to keep her warm, wrapping her up in all the newspapers and other insulators he could find. Her throat was still sore and she couldn't eat solid food, so he'd tried to get some sustenance into her stomach by mashing it all up and mixing it with water. He'd done the same with the pills in the plastic orange bottle.

He would take care of her. It's his job to take care of her; the Blue Lady had told him to. It is his mission, his duty, what he was created to do. Ben is a soldier, made to survive, made to protect civilians, those who can't protect themselves. Ben would take care of Maria, sweet, innocent, vulnerable Maria.

Maria stirring brings him out of his reverie. "Ben?" Brown eyes (he knows they're brown, even though he can't see their color in the dark) flutter open and a warm hand finds its way out of the paper-and-cloth bundle.

Ben reaches for the thin hand. "I'm here."

"Ben," Maria sighs. She blinks the sleep out of her eyes, slowly. "You sound tired," she murmurs. "You _**look**_ tired. Get in here." She shifts inside the carefully constructed sleeping bag to make room for him.

Ben hold puts a hand on her shoulder to make her stop moving. "Don't do that. You're letting the warmth escape," he snaps. He's tired.

Maria levels a weak and glassy-eyed glare at him. "Get inside, then, bossy. You're warmer than a bunch of old newspapers," she says as she tries again to squirm loose.

Ben sighs and runs his hands over his face. He _**is**_ tired. The bed looks inviting, very inviting.

He shucks his holey shoes off and slips inside the paper and blankets with Maria. It's a tight fit, but it's warm, and Maria's soft with the sweaters and jackets he's found (stolen) and wrapped around her. Maria wiggles until her head's resting under his chin. The only way to make that position comfortable is to wrap his arms around her, so he does. It'll keep her warmer that way anyway. He suddenly feels a lot less lonely (Maria awake is better company than Maria asleep, but both are infinitely better than no Maria at all) and relaxes for the first time in weeks.

Maria yawns, which triggers one from Ben as well. She giggles into his shirt sleepily, "Sleepyhead. Toldja you're tired." For several seconds, the only sound is their breathing in the old abandoned building.

Ben breaks the silence, "Maria?"

"Hm?"

"Do you know the story about the Good Place?" he asks. It's stupid; of course she doesn't know his story, his unit's story. He's never told anyone on the Outside.

"No," she mumbles. "Is it like Heaven?"

"The Good Place is where no one ever gets punished or yelled at," Ben begins. "And nobody ever disappears."

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

_Umatilla, Oregon, May 9, 2034_

Alec knows nothing about taking care of sick people. Transgenics don't get sick. On average, they get injured more frequently than Ordinaries, but they don't get sick. The closest they get to 'sick' is when their seizures hit, and that's not even that often, and it's usually endured in privacy, alone.

This…sucks. Why'd he have to get stuck with the food-poisoned delirious teenager? Oh yeah, because he's the one who made her eat the crap that made her sick. But she didn't have to listen to him and actually eat it. America is still a free country, in most places, and he's not her parent, heaven forbid.

Still, he feels bad that she's sick as a dog and he's perfectly fine. They'd ordered the same thing, so either it was a single bad egg (or sausage or pancake), or Mila hadn't inherited her dad's Transgenic immunity to food-borne illnesses. Or you know, both of those scenarios could apply.

He cringes (again) as Mila horks (again) into the plastic trashcan he's holding for her in front of her face. Yeah, that's gotta suck.

When she's done blowing chunks, he sets the wastebasket down in the floor next to the bed and helps the girl lie back down…on her side, so she doesn't pull a rock star move and asphyxiate on her own puke. See? Field Med comes in handy sometimes. He's an awesome uncle-slash-nurse.

"_Quiero Mam__á,"_ she murmurs so softly that only Transgenic ears would have been able to pick it up. As it is, Alec hears it and pats her lamely on the shoulder, offering the only comfort he can. Poor homesick orphan.

Alec wishes Maria Delacruz could have been here too. Then he could dump the teenager with her mom and come back when she was all better, and not shivery and sweaty and smelling like vomit. But _Mam__á's _dead, so Alec's stuck with nursing duty until the food poisoning runs its course.

Max would be so proud of him for staying with the kid and not ditching her.

Alec sighs and scratches his beard. He looks down at the girl, with all that dark hair matted with sweat to her pale face and spread out on the thin motel-room pillow, curled up in a fetal position and looking perfectly _miserable_. He gives her shoulder another consolatory pat and takes the trash can to the bathroom to empty it and wash it out again while keeping an ear out for any sounds from the bed that might signal another bout of yacking.

While he's in the bathroom, he fills the cracked complimentary glass with water from the faucet. Alec knows it's probably not the most sanitary water to give to a sick person, but it's the only liquid around. He spoons some salt and sugar into the glass and mixes it all up into a solution.

Then he goes over to the bed, sits on the edge of it against the headboard, and gently moves Mila into a more upright position, propped up against him.

"Here, drink this."

Mila weakly turns her head away from the proffered glass.

Alec moves the water in front of the girl's mouth again. "Come on. You don't wanna get dehydrated from all that hurling you've been doing, do you?" He pushes the cold glass up against her lips. "Drink."

With her hair sticking up in all directions and her eyes scrunched up like that, Mila looks more like a five-year-old than a teenager. _"Mam__á,"_ she repeats sluggishly and tries to squirm out of his grip with a high-pitched whine.

Alec sighs and wonders who up there hates him so goddamn much. He tries again. "Come on, Mila, drink the water. _Bebe el agua, querida."_

Apparently, Spanish is the way to go when dealing with a sick Mila. Good to know. The girl takes a sip, but immediately spits it back out, making a face.

The accidental uncle sighs again. He's been heaving a lot of sighs since he first got that call from Logan about a potential daughter. _"Conozco que el sabor es desagradable, pero necesita beberse este agua, Mila. __¿__OK? __¿__Para mi?"_ He holds his breath, hoping it would work.

Mila grumbles but drinks half of the glass, making Alec _very_ happy that maybe she'll get better sooner than later. He's kind of bored, being stuck in this room in a motel in the middle of nowhere with a broken TV and only vomit sounds for conversation, all day and all night. And hungry. He's really hungry.

He's got some cans of food in the back of his SUV that he can open and heat up on the stove (which works, surprise-surprise). He might even heat up some soup for Mila if she manages to keep the salt-and-sugar solution down.

There's a soft gagging sound from the bed.

Alec scrambles to get the wastebasket to Mila before she barfs on the moldy carpet. Rats. So much for the soup.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

**Translations (again, if you're a Spanish-speaker, just **_**pretend**_** their Spanish is like, totally fluent, okay? I'm using an online dictionary for this.)**

"_Quiero Mam__á"_ = I want Mom.

"_Bebe el agua, querida."_ = Drink the water, honey.

"_Conozco que el sabor es desagradable, pero necesita beberse este agua, Mila. __¿__OK? __¿__Para mi?"_ = I know that the taste is gross, but you need to drink this water, Mila. Okay? For me?

**Pop Culture References**

Inigo Montoya, Westley, Princess Buttercup: all characters from The Princess Bride.

Capulet: surname of Juliet in Shakespeare's story of star-cross'd lovers, Romeo and Juliet.

"Priests don't lie. It's bad to lie.": Ben says to Father Destry in the episode "Pollo Loco" that he isn't lying.

What Ben says about the Good Place here is almost word or word from "Pollo Loco."


End file.
